THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 


convenes the 


MEETING 42 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


VOL. I 


DAY ONE 


The verbatim transcript of the 42nd 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held at the Holiday Inn Select, 


Naperville, Illinois, on Dec. 11, 2006. 

 

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C O N T E N T S 

Dec. 11, 2006 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL 

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MONSANTO CHEMICAL CO.SEC PETITION 

MR. LAVON RUTHERFORD, NIOSH/OCAS 

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GENERAL ATOMICS SEC PETITION 

MR. LAVON RUTHERFORD, NIOSH/OCAS 

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STATUS OF UPCOMING SEC PETITIONS 

MR. LAVON RUTHERFORD, NIOSH/OCAS 

FEED MATERIALS PRODUCTION CENTER (FERNALD) 

LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LAB 

BETHLEHEM STEEL 

HANFORD 

SANDIA NATIONAL LAB – LIVERMORE 

DOW CHEMICAL CO. 

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SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, CHAIR 

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PUBLIC COMMENT 144 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 204 
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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


In the following transcript: a dash (--) indicates 


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


sentence. An ellipsis (. . .) indicates halting speech 


or an unfinished sentence in dialogue or omission(s) of 


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


-- "uh-huh" represents an affirmative response, and 


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


-- "*" denotes a spelling based on phonetics, 


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

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P A R T I C I P A N T S 


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

CHAIR
 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


School of Health Sciences 


Purdue University 


Lafayette, Indiana 


EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

CLAWSON, Bradley 


Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 


Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 


GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 


GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 


LOCKEY, James, M.D. 


Professor, Department of Environmental Health 


College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 

 

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MELIUS, James Malcom, M.D., Ph.D. 


Director 


New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 


Albany, New York 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 


ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


University of Florida 


Elysian, Minnesota 


STAFF
 

LASHAWN SHIELDS, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 

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SIGNED-IN AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS
 

BAKER, ELAINE, MASO 


BROEHM, JASON, CDC WASHINGTON OFFICE 


BURGAN, LARRY 


CASE, DIANE L., DOL 


CHANG, C, NIOSH 


DUNGAN ANITA, CLAIMANT 


DVORAK, CHUCK 


ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH 


ENGLE, MEETA, GAO 


FITZGERALD, JOSEPH, SC&A 


HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


KOSTAL, GEORGE R., NIOSH 


LEWIS, MARK, ATL 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MCFEE, MATTHEW, ORAUT 


MCKEEL, DAN, WU-VI NEWS 


MCKEEL, LOUISE, VILLAGE IMAGE NEWS 


MILLER, RICHARD, GAP 


OZBOLT, ARNIE 


PRESLEY, LOUISE S., WIFE OF ROBERT PRESLEY 


RAFKY, MICHAEL, HHS 


RUTHERFORD, LAVON, NIOSH 


ZIEMER, MARILYN 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(1:22 p.m.) 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

DR. ZIEMER: Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to 


call the meeting to order. This is the 42nd 


meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health, meeting in Naperville, Illinois. 


And I feel like I can welcome you to 


Naperville. This is actually my old stomping 


grounds since I went to college about ten miles 


from here down the road in Wheaton College. Of 


course in those days Naperville Road between 


here and Wheaton was a gravel road, so the 


area's changed a bit since those days, but 


nonetheless it feels like home to be back in -- 


in the Naperville area. 


My usual reminders to everyone, please register 


your attendance in the booklet out in the 


foyer. Those members of the public who wish to 


address the Board during the public comment 


sessions, please sign up in the book out there 


for that purpose. On the tables in the rear of 


the room are various documents that will be 

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part of our deliberations over the next three 


days. Be sure you have whatever copies you 


need, as well as copies of the agenda. 


The agenda is not necessarily a time-fixed 


agenda or a time certain agenda. We always 


have to estimate how long various issues will 


take. But we are flexible enough to be able to 


adjust the agenda as the need arises. There is 


one somewhat fixed-time item, and that is for 


tomorrow. To the best of our understanding, 


Senator Obama will be here at 11:15 tomorrow 


morning. So to the extent that he's able to 


keep on that schedule, wherever we are in the 


agenda, we will interrupt at that point and 


have the opportunity to hear him as he wishes 


to address the Advisory Board. 


Now let me call on Dr. Lewis Wade, our 


Designated Federal Official, for additional 


comments. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you, Paul. Let me start as I 


always do -- I hope I do -- and always end, and 


that is to thank the Board for its service. 


You are a most productive and hard-working 


Board, and we thank you for that. I bring you 


regards and thanks from Secretary Leavitt, 

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Secretary of HHS; and then from Dr. Gerberding, 


the director of CDC; and then John Howard, the 


NIOSH director. John will be with us for part 


of this meeting, and if you see him and you 


want to share some thoughts with him, please 


feel free to do that. 


A couple of things -- we have also another 


distinguished guest, Elaine Baker with 


Committee Management from CDC is with us, and 


Elaine's going to chat with you tomorrow. You 


said that you wanted to have an opportunity to 


chat with people from Committee Management, so 


we sent our best and brightest and Elaine is 


here and will engage with you tomorrow. 


A couple of sort of quirks of the agenda. At 


1:45 on Wednesday we have a time that we're 


calling SEC write-up review. This was put in 


on the recommendation of Dr. Melius and others. 


The Board works very hard at doing its SEC 


drafting in real time during the meetings, and 


we thought it would be well to reflect, just 


before the Board adjourned, to look at whether 


or not there should be any changes or 


modifications to the Board's recommendations. 


That will give NIOSH and Department of Labor 

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and the attorneys an opportunity to look at the 


motions and the language, and if there's any 


wisdom they want to bring to the Board, they 


can bring it to the Board while the Board is 


still in session so the Board can make those 


changes. 


And then also at 3:15 on Wednesday we have an 


ample amount of Board working time. This will 


be to look at scheduling additional meetings, 


you know, the variety of issues that the Board 


needs to work on, and also any items that we're 


not able to finish on time in the agenda we'll 


be able to take up on Wednesday afternoon. 


So again, thank you for your service. I look 


forward to a busy and a most productive Board 


meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Lew. And let 


me add, as far as the item on Wednesday 


afternoon's agenda, the SEC write-up review, 


that becomes important because our experience, 


we've had several motions by this Board which 


we found after the fact, when the Chair got to 


the point of writing them on a formal 


letterhead and transmitting them to the 


Secretary, that there were some glitches either 

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in how we defined the -- the petitioners versus 


how they were defined by NIOSH, or there was 


some other perhaps questionable references to 


federal documents -- glitches which were 


correctable, but we hate to actually, after the 


fact, change the action of the Board in terms 


of approved wording. So this will give us an 


opportunity, if we do have approved motions 


today and tomorrow, to go back and say okay, is 


there anything that causes discomfort from 


either NIOSH or the petitioners or the -- our 


counselors, our attorneys, so that will be 


important. So in a sense we will -- if there 


are appropriate motions on these SEC petitions 


-- well, any motion is appropriate, but if 


there are motions, we will in a sense consider 


them provisional in the sense that you will 


have a final opportunity to -- to take a relook 


at the wording later in the meeting and take 


care of any glitches that might arise. 


 DR. WADE: And maybe just to follow up a little 


bit more, the Board obviously is in a phase of 


its operations where dealing with SEC petitions 


and making recommendations to the Secretary is 


a large part of what the Board is doing. The 

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precise wording of those determinations and 


recommendations become very important. The 


Board has talked about the fact that the HHS 


Secretary makes a definition of class based 


upon a recommendation it would receive from 


this Board, and then the Department of Labor 


determines eligibility. Those are questions 


that carry with -- with them great significance 


in terms of how things play out, and I know 


that the Board wants to reflect upon those 


issues. And this will give us an opportunity 


at the end of each meeting to reflect on those 


issues, particularly in light of lessons we've 


learned from actions that might have been 


completed a Board meeting or two earlier. So 


this becomes more and more an important 


exercise for the Board in terms of definition, 


and that's why we wanted to revisit it, and 


we'll make this a regular part of every Board 


meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. For the record, let us 


just show that all Board members are present, 


with the exception of Dr. Poston -- who we 


understand ran into some weather problems and 


perhaps will still be arriving, but arriving 

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late -- and Wanda Munn -- who is here, but ran 


into some logistical problems and -- well, I 


don't need to get into what they are, but she 


will rejoin us sometime yet this afternoon. 


 DR. WADE: I would ask if Dr. Poston might be 


on the phone. Is Dr. Poston on the phone? 


 (No responses) 


Okay, fine. We have a quorum of the Board. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We do know that he was planning to 


be here and apparently ran into some weather 


problems as far as his flights were concerned, 


so perhaps he will arrive yet as we continue. 


At the front end of our deliberations here 


today we have two SEC petitions to deal with. 


The first of these is the Monsanto Chemical 


Company petition, and the second is the General 


Atomics SEC petition. And LaVon Rutherford 


from NIOSH is going to make both presentations 


in terms of the NIOSH evaluation report. 


Let me ask, though, before LaVon begins -- Dr. 


Wade, are you aware of any of the petitioners 


that are present or planned -- or wished to be 


present by either phone or in person? 


 DR. WADE: To the best of my knowledge, for 


both of these actions there are no petitioners 

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who have asked to speak or we are expecting to 


speak, although certainly we would welcome 


petitioners or their representatives for either 


of these petitions to speak after LaVon would 


conclude his presentation. 


MONSANTO CHEMICAL CO.SEC PETITION
 

MR. LAVON RUTHERFORD, NIOSH/OCAS


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So with that, let's begin 


with Monsanto Chemical Company. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: All right. Am I on? Can you 


hear me? Okay, thank you, Dr. Ziemer and the 


rest of the Board for giving me this 


opportunity to present on behalf of NIOSH and 


our evaluation of the Monsanto Chemical Company 


Special Exposure Cohort petition. 


Petition -- we received the petition on January 


9th of this year. The petition went through 


the qualification process and was qualified on 


May 1st of this year. We went through the 


evaluation process and completed our evaluation 


on November 7th, provided the evaluation to the 


petitioner and to the Board on that day. 


 The petition was submitted to NIOSH on behalf 


of the class, as required by the rule. The 


initial class definition was directors and 


subordinates, physicists, chemists, technicians 

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and workers that worked at Monsanto Chemical 


Company in Dayton, Ohio during the period from 


1943 to 1949. We initially qualified the 


petition based on a lack of monitoring data. 


The petitioners supplied that basis in their 


petition. We reviewed that and we agreed with 


that. 


At the time of the evaluation there were 61 


claims that we felt met the current Monsanto 


Chemical Company class definition. That may 


have changed slightly between completion of the 


report and now, but roughly 61 claims. 


 The Monsanto Chemical Company was contacted by 


the Manhattan Engineering District in 1943 to 


support the development of the atomic bomb. 


They were asked to produce neutron sources that 


would be used in the trigger assemblies for the 


atomic bomb. The neutron sources, you know, 


that they looked at using were mainly polonium 


-- polonium, beryllium sources that -- as well 


as they did research and development work on 


other sources. 


The -- initially they extracted the polonium 


from lead oxide, which is a uranium ore 


byproduct. The actual -- in Port Hope* they 

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removed the radium, the lead oxide was 


basically a byproduct. Then -- then they 


recognized that that process was very 


inefficient process. They did not -- they were 


unable to extract a large quantity of polonium 


and there was a lot of work done at the time 


with -- looking at irradiating bismuth -- 


bismuth-209, irradiating bismuth-210, 210 


decays to the polonium, and so they -- they 


recognized that that process was a much more 


efficient process and they could get a lot more 


quantity. 


 So started out with the actual -- using lead 


oxide extraction process and moved to the -- to 


the -- extracting polonium from the irradiated 


bismuth. 


When NIOSH did our -- when we did our 


evaluation there were a number of sources of 


information that we -- that we looked at to try 


to -- to determine whether dose reconstruction 


was feasible or not. We looked at Technical 


Information Bulletins from the -- you know, 


that our contractor, ORAU, had developed. We 


looked at the Mound site profile and -- and -- 


Monsanto Chemical Company was the predecessor 

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to the Mound site and a lot of the information 


on Monsanto Chemical Company early years is 


contained within our Mound site profile. 


 We interviewed former Monsanto employees to -- 


to discuss with them potential exposure 


scenarios, what they could tell us during -- 


during the class period. We looked at case 


files in the NIOSH databases. We reviewed the 


site research documents in the site research 


database, and we looked at documents and 


affidavits provided by the petitioner. 


In addition, we looked at the polonium 


reconstruction database. This is a database of 


polonium bioassay data that was put together 


for Monsanto Chemical Company workers, as well 


as Mound workers. We looked at the CEDR 


database, we looked at Monsanto Chemical 


Company progress reports, and we looked at some 


FUSRAP information. 


 Monsanto Chemical Company employees were 


exposed both internally and externally from -- 


during the production of neutron sources, 


performing laboratory research operations that 


supported the development of polonium 


extraction processes, and the production of 

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polonium neutron sources. In addition they did 


research on operations with thorium and uranium 


-- excuse me, that should say thorium and 


radium, that's -- make that correction. And 


they did -- exposure as well to ore byproducts. 


The principal external exposures, there was a ­

- high beta dose rates from the decay of the 


bismuth-210 from the irradiated bismuth slugs. 


You had neutron exposure from the neutron 


sources. You had photon exposure during the 


polonium production processes, as well as X-ray 


exposures from diagnostic X-ray procedures. 


 Principal internal exposures were from 


polonium, impurities in the lead oxide -- 


uranium and uranium progeny -- activation 


products, and then research and development 


work with the thorium and radium. 


All right, availability of dosimetry data. 


External monitoring data, we have external 


monitoring data starting in February of 1944 to 


the end of the class period. However, there is 


one problem with that. The data -- when -- 


when -- during the time period when the 


workers' exposure data was logged, it was 


logged numerically and there was a code key 

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developed for that numerical logging of the 


data. Those code keys were lost. However, the 


data is available. 


We have extremity data from finger rings from 


the -- February as well to the end of the 


project, and there is no neutron monitoring 


data prior to September of 1949. 


 Internal monitoring data, records indicate that 


bio-- you know, that the -- routinely they took 


bioassay samples for polonium from 1944 through 


'49. We have a large database, as mentioned 


earlier, with polonium bioassay data. 


 There's limited general area monitoring data. 


There's some blood sample data. They initially 


actually looked at the comparison, they -- they 


took blood -- what happened to my screen? 


(Pause) 


That's it. Okay, we know how to fix that now. 


You know, the thing is that you see it right 


here, so I didn't know it went out. 


 But internal monitoring data -- internal 


monitoring data. As I mentioned, we have bio-- 


polonium bioassay data. The blood samples, as 


I was discussing earlier, the blood samples -- 


they actually looked at -- initially when they 

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were looking at measuring the levels of 


polonium in an individual, they looked at both 


bioassay from urine and from blood. They 


actually measured activity in the blood. 


However, this is -- there's few samples in this 


method and they determined that their -- that 


urine bioassay was a better method during that 


time. 


We have no internal monitoring data for 


radionuclides other than polonium. 


 Our evaluation process is a two-pronged 


process. First we look -- we determine whether 


it's feasible to -- whether dose reconstruction 


is feasible or not. If dose reconstruction is 


feasible, we don't have to go to that next step 


of determining health endangerment. If dose 


reconstruction is not feasible, then we must go 


to that next step and determine whether there 


was health endangerment. 


NIOSH found that, based on the available 


monitoring records, process description and 


source term data are insufficient to complete 


dose reconstruction for the proposed class 


period. 


NIOSH currently lacks access to sufficient 

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monitoring, source term and process information 


to estimate the internal doses from 


radionuclides other than polonium and the 


neutron external exposures. 


NIOSH found that the available internal 


monitoring data, process description and source 


term data are sufficient to reconstruct 


occupational internal doses from polonium. 


And we found that with the available external 


monitoring data is sufficient to complete dose 


reconstructions of the external beta/gamma 


components, including medical X-ray. 


NIOSH determined that it is not feasible to 


complete dose reconstructions with sufficient 


accuracy for the -- for the class, and that 


health endanger-- and health of the employees 


was potentially endangered. 


 The evidence reviewed indicates that the 


workers in the class received chronic internal 


and external exposures from production and 


research operations with neutron sources. 


 Our proposed class definition is all atomic 


weapons employees -- oh, man, did I do it 


again? 


(Pause) 

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Okay, they're going to take this thing away 


from me. 


Again, all atomic weapons employees who were 


monitored, or should have been monitored, while 


working in the Monsanto Chemical Company Units 


I, III or IV in Dayton, Ohio for a number of 


work days aggregating at least 250 work days 


during the period of January 1, 1943 through 


December 31, 1949, or in a combination with 


work days within the parameter established for 


other classes of the employees in the SEC. 


That's the entire covered period. 


In summary, internal -- we feel dose 


reconstruction is feasible for polonium 


exposures. We feel dose reconstruction is not 


feasible for other radionuclides. 


 External exposures are feasible for beta/gamma 


and occupational medical X-rays. However, 


external exposures from neutrons are not 


feasible. 


 And our recommendation, as mentioned 


previously, January 1, 1943 through December 


31, 1949. 


 That's it. 


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for discussion. LaVon, let me ask a couple of 


questions here at the front end. First of all, 


on the so-called code -- I'm looking for the 


terminology that you used -- 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: The code key? 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- code key --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the rosetta stone of --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Monsanto. Is the code key -- 


this is presumably a list of the workers that 


would match up with some unknown numbers in the 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, what it is -- the actual 


monitoring data is there, but what it -- what 


they did, and I don't know if it was because of 


privacy or -- but they -- when they logged 


exposures, they logged them to the individual 


and gave that individual a numerical number, 


and then --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, so you have the numbers and 


the amounts --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right, we have the numbers -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- but the key is missing. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: The key for that is missing. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: However -- and that is for 


both beta and gamma. 


 DR. ZIEMER: All right. Now in the summary 


table where you indicate dose reconstruction is 


feasible for polonium and for external, would 


that still be dependent on this key, or are you 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: No --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- saying you could do that -- 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- I think --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- in terms of classes of workers? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right, with -- what we feel is 


the data is there and the data can be used for 


developing a coworker model for -- for doing 


the beta/gamma portion of it. But there is no 


neutron monitoring data at all. That's why 


neutrons are separated out as -- you know. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And then let me also ask this. In 


one of your slides you say that NIOSH currently 


lacks access to sufficient monitoring, et 


cetera. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: The --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: That doesn't --

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 DR. ZIEMER: -- the implication there, I'd like 


to find out what that means -- 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: It's probably --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- this is not classified data. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Correct. Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So when you say you lack access -- 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- does that --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: That was poorly --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- imply that somebody's keeping 


data from you? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, I -- I apologize. That 


should say that -- that currently that 


information is unavailable. We -- it may 


exist. We continue -- as we go through the 


project, we continue to get more and more 


information. However, at this time we do not 


have that information, so that should say -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: There's not a --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- chunk of data sitting somewhere 


and you just can't get at it. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: No, there's not. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, a follow-up to Paul's 

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question on the external monitoring. If the 


key's lost, is there any -- do you have 


information on job title or building or 


something, or is it entirely lost? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: It's entirely lost. 


 DR. MELIUS: The -- then --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: What you would have -- what we 


would be doing with the beta/gamma external 


exposures developing a coworker model would be 


to look -- I mean setting up a distribution 


that we could use to -- that we could give to 


everyone for an external. 


 DR. MELIUS: So what model -- it's all 


basically --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. Yes. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- information on how the sampling 


was done, how the people were selected or -- I 


mean my question I guess. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, you're not proposing to do 


that, though. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: No, no, what I'm saying is 


that that's what we could do -- possibly do 


with that information. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Also, I might observe that during 

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this time frame there were no legal 


requirements for lifetime doses on people. 


They were typically weekly limits, so you could 


-- you could have a different code key every 


week, as long as your -- as long as you showed 


the person was under their limit for that week, 


that's all you cared about and there was no -- 


there was no reason to think that someone would 


have the same numbered badge every week. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Exactly. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And I base that on our experience 


at -- at my institution in the late '50s. It 

didn't matter who had a particular number 

because it could be different every time. You 

were only interested in that period. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And that -- that raises a follow-


up question for me, which is -- you know, do 


you have any way of determining the 


representativeness of -- of the data you do 


have if -- you know, I was thinking you could 


at least determine how many individuals were 


monitored by sorting by the code key. But what 


-- but if what Paul's saying is true, you can't 


do that even. Have you examined -- you know, 

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is there enough data there that you can say 


we're confident that we can reconstruct 


external doses for all the workers at the site. 


That's -- that's -- that's the benchmark that 


you have to test against. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I understand. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I think what we're saying is 


is that we feel that we can set up a favorable 


exposure scenario based on the information for 


-- that will cover all the employees, assuming 


-- I mean that obviously takes into 


consideration that -- that the higher exposed 


individuals were monitored. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Or it assumes that, yeah. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, that's what I said, 


that's assuming the highest -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: What I'm saying is you don't have 


a guarantee that --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: No. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- badge number 13 was always the 


same person. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: No. No. No. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess the other concern I would 


have is -- I -- you may not even be sure that 

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you have the -- the whole set of data there, 


you know. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: That's true. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, this may relate to -- 


 DR. WADE: Could you put the microphone a 


little closer, please? 


 DR. MELIUS: This may relate to the same issue, 


but Table 4.1 in the evaluation report refers 


to the fact that of the 60 total claims that 


have been submitted from this group that -- if 


I understand that right -- you've completed 


dose reconstructions on 40 of them -- 41? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: That's correct. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. And so could someone sort 


of explain that table to me? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, I -- I haven't reviewed 


those claims to look at how many of them were 


compensated and how many were of -- I mean how 


many were greater than 50 percent, and a number 


of those could have also been workers that 


worked later in the years at Mound facility and 


they used some -- used their Mound bioassay 


data to back-extrapolate internal exposures. 


Now I didn't review those claims. 

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 DR. MELIUS: Okay, 'cause -- 'cause there are ­

- I mean there -- there's actually a footnote 


there that -- I'll read into the record. 


(Reading) Only 16 of the claims just have MCC 


employment. The other claims ha-- the other 45 


claims have MCC and Mound covered employment. 


And apparently -- well, it's unclear. Maybe 


Larry, you can explain that second sentence. 


I'm not sure exactly what the number re-- the 


clause refers to, so... I've got it right 


here. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, they were -- the ones that 


were greater than 50 percent with the usual 


underestimate procedure -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: If we look at only the --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- that's adequate --


 MR. ELLIOTT: If we look at only claims that 


have Monsanto work experience, there are 16 of 


those. And of those 16, there were -- there 


have been three dose reconstructions, two of 


which have been found to be greater than 50 


percent and the other one has been held and 


sent back to us for this particular class. It 


was found non-compensable. 


The others that you're talking about of the 61 

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have more Mound experience than they have 


Monsanto experience and they were reconstructed 


with the Monsanto (sic) exposure data. 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That's how they were done. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. So --


 MR. ELLIOTT: But they prob-- they have -- of 


course of that 61, if they have time in this 


class, they will be sent back to us for 


processing under this class. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Exactly. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Gen Roessler? 


DR. ROESSLER: This is a side comment, but you 


don't normally care a lot about polonium-210. 


Recent -- recently various groups, the Health 


Physics Society, the CDC, Health Protection 


Agency in the UK, have all been trying to get 


information on how it's produced, where it 


might be used, the biological effects, the 


monitoring techniques. And it appears that you 


have become an expert -- 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I wouldn't say I'm --


DR. ROESSLER: -- on the subject --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- an expert. 


DR. ROESSLER: -- but -- but you certainly have 

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learned a lot about it in a -- 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 


DR. ROESSLER: -- in a place where it seems 


very early on they recognized that this was an 


important radionuclide because they did do the 


bioassay. I find that very interesting. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, they actually did some 


bi-- they also did some biological effects 


work, as well -- small scale, but some 


biological effects work there done with -- with 


animals. 


 DR. ZIEMER: All right. Wanda Munn. 


 MS. MUNN: Just a matter of curiosity, and I 


can't even find the numbers that I had seen 


originally in the SEC write-up. I remember 


there were a large number of bioassays that 


covered something like 1,600 employees -- 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: 1,600 employees during the '43 


to -- or during that '43 to '49 period. 


 MS. MUNN: During that period. But I had no 


feel for what the total number of employees at 


Monsanto was during that time. Do you have --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I have -- I mean what I've 


read -- the first year they ramped up, they 


were over 200 employees before the end of the 

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first year, and I -- but I -- I kind of 


anticipated that question. I went back and I 


haven't been able to come up with an exact 


number that they got up to, you know, for -- by 


the end of '49, but --


 MS. MUNN: But do you have a feel for what 


range that would have been? I'm not looking 


for an exact number. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I think there were around 300 


or 400 employees, and it -- and it steadily 


went up to when they switched operations to -- 


to the Mound facility, because if you look at 


the chronology of when the facilities were 


constructed or when they were designating Units 


I, Units II, Units III and Units IV, you know, 


Unit I, the first 200 people were -- were 


working in Unit I and then they recognized they 


were going to need more room and they add Unit 


-- Unit II was a completely separate facility 


that did rocket propellant work, but then Unit 


III was added and Unit IV was added because of 


the increasing -- and not only staffing, but 


the production processes and the amount of 


production that was required. 


 MS. MUNN: I guess the point of my question was 

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I was trying to get some feel for approximately 


what portion of the total workforce might have 


been involved in that 1,600 number that was the 


total number of individuals in... 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I -- I could find that out for 


you. 


 MS. MUNN: Well, it's not that crucial. I just 


wanted --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: -- I wanted to try to -- 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I would expect --


 MS. MUNN: -- imagine in my mind whether it was 


more than half, less than a bushel, you know. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah. Like I said, I would 


expect -- you know, I know the first year they 


were 200, and then as they increased to late 


'49, when they were shifting over to -- to the 


Mound facility, I'm sure it was eight -- 800 to 


1,000 employees, could be as high 


(unintelligible). 


 MS. MUNN: Right. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim, did you have an additional 


question? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I actually have some 


additional questions. One is, could -- since 

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the petitioner's not available here, could 


someone from NIOSH describe their interaction 


with the petitioner? Did they --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 


 DR. MELIUS: And as to whether you also reached 


out to other people who worked at the site and 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- so forth, might be claimants, 


just for the record. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, what we -- what we did 


was actually, in addition to contacting -- or 


the contacts with the petitioner, we 


interviewed former Monsanto Chemical Company 


employee -- we actually set up a -- a couple of 


meetings and got some of the old -- older 


workers. They have a -- a group, a 


organization that -- I can't remember the name, 


Mike might know the name, I'm not sure -- but 


there's a group that -- they meet routinely and 


we got with them, we got with kind of their 


leader of that group. We got some names of 


individuals that worked during that period from 


them and we interviewed seven of those people 


that worked during that period. 

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 DR. MELIUS: Thanks. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: But also with the petitioner ­

- when we sent the petitioner the report, we 


also informed the petitioner of the upcoming 


Board meeting and obviously offered them 


opportunity to speak on behalf of their 


petition. 


 DR. MELIUS: Thanks. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Any further questions or comments? 


 DR. WADE: I would just ask again if the 


petitioner or anyone representing the 


petitioner is on the line. 


 MS. (UNINTELLIGIBLE): Yes, Mary Alice 


(Unintelligible). 


 MR. PRESLEY: There's somebody. Can you turn 


it up? 


 DR. ZIEMER: There may be somebody. 


 DR. WADE: Could you speak up, please? 


 MS. (UNINTELLIGIBLE): Yes, this is Mary Alice 


(Unintelligible), and I'm the petitioner for 


the class. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Did you have some comments, ma'am? 


 MS. (UNINTELLIGIBLE): Presently I don't have 


many more comments concerning the information 


that was given and I would like to -- I don't ­
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- I have in the library -- the amount of 


persons who were employed went up very rapidly 


so that the 1,600 number would be possible for 


that group from 1943 to 1949. After that there 


were many more who worked on different projects 


that probably would (unintelligible) at the 


Mound -- that you probably have found out from 


the Mound material. Outside of that, I'd like 


to thank the Board for accepting this petition 


and to the members of NIOSH who have 


contributed to the process to bring it up to 


this stage. And I never take anything for 


granted, so that I would hope for the people 


who are involved that they -- that it will 


succeed with going through the process. Thank 


you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Go ahead, 


Mark and then Jim. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -- just looking back at 


the internal dose question for a second, you 


have a lot of polonium data. It mentions here 


that you have some air monitoring data and I -- 


and -- and some breathing zone air sampling 


starting in '45, actually. I mean it -- I'm 


assuming a lot of that was gross alpha type 

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data. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, there was --


 MR. GRIFFON: Were there any attempts made to 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: To try to bound that? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, we looked at that. The 


problem we had with the air monitoring data 


that we had, it was very, very spotty. I mean 


there were a few samples here and there, and it 


wasn't indicative of whether any samples were ­

- were general area, not always general area 


samples or even -- they could -- some of them 


even indicat-- looked like they were actually 


production type samples, more of samples to see 


how much material was in a -- in that vicinity 


of the production process, so -- so we couldn't 


-- based on the air sampling data that we had, 


we couldn't come up with a viable method. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And not enough information on 


source term --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Correct. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I'm assuming, same -- 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Correct. 


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there also is not particle size data -- 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: No. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- in the air samples. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: No. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Did you have an additional -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. My question concerns some 


of the discussion on page 30 of the report, and 


I guess my question's revolving around were 


there any acute exposure incidents that -- that 


occurred at the facility and -- I think as you 


know, we're --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- another -- another workgroup of 


the Board is addressing that. We're sort of 


wrestling with how to define those and -- and 


so forth, so the first italicized paragraph on 


the bottom of that page drew my attention 


because it mentioned a -- an incident with a 


low blood count --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- which was one of the sort of 


criteria we had talked about as sort of somehow 


indicating exposure. And I guess my question 


is is do these -- do the subsequent paragraphs 


at the bottom of the page, statements in a 

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report -- later report, do they refer to the 


same incident or these -- 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: What they actually end up -- 


if you read them all, it ends up that the 


individual with the low blood count, they could 


find no radiological reason for that. The 


polonium activity in the samples were all low 


and they determined that it may -- it must be 


actual -- some kind of medical condition that 


was -- that they probably had low -- their -- 


normally have a low blood count. There's a 


number of reports on that, as well. But I 


think Dr. Melius brings up a -- you know, the 


good quest-- or good point about the incidents. 


I mean obviously with the polonium exposures 


that we've had in the news and recognizing this 


-- it only takes a small amount, the reason we 


did not, you know, look at a -- adjusting the ­

- you know, or looking at say an acute exposure 


scenario is because we said we could do 


polonium dose reconstruction. And from -- from 


that work part of it, and -- and the fact that 


we -- we -- in the records there were no 


records that indicated a low white blood count 


from an exposure of polonium that -- that we've 

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seen. They were looking at it. They 


definitely looked at -- they took blood 


analysis on -- on workers, but we did not see 


that. 


 DR. MELIUS: Thanks. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It appears there are no further 


questions. Do any of the Board members wish to 


make a recommendation relative to this petition 


and the NIOSH evaluation? 


 MR. PRESLEY: (Unintelligible) ready to accept 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Melius? 


 DR. MELIUS: I'll start by not offering a 


letter or a complete motion, but in terms of a 


recommendation is I would say I'm comfortable 


accepting the general recommendation of NIOSH 


for the lack of feasibility of doing dose 


reconstruction for this group. I still have 


some questions about the issue of what they can 


do, particularly whether they can reconstruct 


external doses adequately given some of the 


discussion here. I just think it's, and if you 


remember, we've been -- in several of our more 


recent recommendations we've been specifically 


addressing what -- what NIOSH can do, what -- 

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what doses can be reconstructed. And I guess I 


-- I think it may be premature to -- at least 


for the Board to -- to commit on that issue, 


and I guess I also have some questions about 


the definition and -- and so forth which may be 


something we're going to discuss later in the ­

- sort of the general issues of how do you 


define the class in terms of making it sort of 


operational from a Department of Labor point of 


view -- perspective on this, but... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, okay. This is kind of a 


suggested motion to approve -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- but before we do that, let me 


ask a question that perhaps will help us 


clarify. If -- if the Board supports the 


recommendation of NIOSH, is it necessary that 


we address issues of, for example, can you do 


external? Because if someone is in the class 


but has a cancer other than a presumptive 


cancer, can they not go back -- in any event, 


regardless of what we say -- and petition for a 


dose reconstruction for that cancer, or do we 


have to say something in the document? 


For example, if it was clear that they had 

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external exposure and -- or polonium exposure 


and -- and for that individual you could do a 


dose reconstruction and say found that the dose 


was say sufficient for -- for an award of a 


different cancer, is it necessary that we have 


said something about that in advance? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, it's certainly your 


prerogative if you wish to say something -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: But is it necessary? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- but we feel that we have -- 


have characterized what we can ex-- what we can 


reconstruct dose for and what we can't 


reconstruct dose for. We think it's important 


that -- that we be clear in saying what we can 


reconstruct dose for because that leads to a 


partial dose reconstruction for people who have 


a non-presumptive cancer. As we proceed in 


those dose reconstructions, however, if we find 


ourselves in a situation where we can't 


reconstruct something, we would again be back 


with the Board under the 83.14 part of the 


rule. 


 DR. WADE: Larry, before you go on, I think 


it's important that the Board understand 


exactly the flow of these cases prior to the 

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conduct of a partial dose reconstruction and 


whether or not there's a prerogative on the 


part of the Department of Labor to -- to send 


those cases to us. How will those cases that 


might warrant a partial dose reconstruction 


come to NIOSH? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We submit -- upon each class 


designation, when it becomes a class, we submit 


a list of claims to the Department of Labor 


that -- from our limited perspective. We don't 


do the full development of these, but we 


identify those claims that have a presumptive 


cancer and send them back to Department of 


Labor. They then determine the eligibility of 


that -- if -- all of those claims, each 


individual claim in that set, for the class. 


We continue work on the remaining claims that 


we view as not having a presumptive cancer. 


And in some cases those get bounced back and 


forth between us and DOL if the person 


identifies that they have an additional cancer 


or something else changes in the demographics 


of the case. 


I'd also like to say that as we move forward 


with our evaluation reports and right before we 

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present them to the Advisory Board and to the 


petitioner, the class definition is vetted on 


each one of these with the Department of Labor. 


And they spend a little bit of time trying to 


determine if in fact they can use the class 


definition to determine eligibility or if they 


can't. I get a -- I get a letter from the 


Department of Labor indicating their findings 


in that regard and those letters will of course 


follow suit in the posting of the 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: Larry, you suggested that those 


cancers that were non-presumptive you would 


continue to attempt dose reconstructions. 


Suppose a claim came to Labor after the SEC was 


approved that had a non-presumptive cancer -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That would come to us. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- would they automatically send 


that to you? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, they would refer that claim 


to us for dose reconstruction. 


 DR. WADE: In all cases. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: In all cases. 


 DR. WADE: There's no judgment to be made. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's what I'm really asking. 

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 MR. ELLIOTT: If it's a non-presumptive cancer 


or has less than 250 days in the class, they 


would send it to us for dose reconstruction. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. And the Chair will allow 


Mr. Miller, who's -- who is squirming in his 


seat --


 DR. WADE: This is an important point as we 


move forward. 


 MR. MILLER: Can I get some clarification 


perhaps? 


 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) legal issue you 


may want to clari--


 MR. MILLER: This is Richard Miller. In the 


Mallinckrodt Chemical first -- first SEC 


covering the -- what is it, '43 to -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: '47. 


 MR. MILLER: -- '47 time period, the Board did 


not specify in its SEC designation that 


external radiation dose could be reconstructed. 


It did in the second Mallinckrodt SEC class, 


but it did not do so in the first one. 


Department of Labor was then asked well, why is 


it you're not sending those non-presumptive 


skin cancer cases back to NIOSH for dose 


reconstruction to do the skin cancer cases. 

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And their answer is is because the HHS 


designation, based on the letter that came up 


from the Advisory Board, did not say that 


external penetrating dose could be 


reconstructed. And as a result, those cases 


were simply set aside and not referred for dose 


reconstruction. Is that -- is that a correct 


characterization of what happened? 'Cause 


that's certainly what the paper trail looks 


like, and if that is --


 DR. ZIEMER: Actually that's the -- sort of the 


question I'm asking --


 MR. MILLER: Good enough, right --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and I'm wondering if we know. 

 MR. MILLER: -- and I think that's why we need 

some clarification on that. 


 DR. WADE: It's important -- we should take a 


moment to -- while they're caucusing, remember, 


this is an advisory committee to the Secretary 


of HHS. The word of this committee is not 


binding or necessarily influential to the 


Department of Labor, so we have to be sure that 


the issue is effectively dealt with in your 


recommendation to HHS -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right --

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 DR. WADE: -- and that's why this question -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the question --


 DR. WADE: -- becomes important. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- arises. Larry? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, Richard Miller takes us 


back to our earliest experience, and I would 


say it was, you know, a learning experience and 


we -- we evolved, all of us evolved and the 


process and the program evolved from that 


experience. However, I would -- I would like 


to clarify for you what really happened, I 


think, in that first period. 


 It was determined that the data was unreliable 


in the early Mallinckrodt period -- unreliable. 


So DOL came at us and said well -- it's not the 


Board's letter, by the way; it's the 


Secretary's designation that carries the weight 


here, and the Secretary's designation indicated 


that the data were unreliable, so we couldn't 


reconstruct any type of dose in that early time 


period. 


Then I think we went into the next class, and 


the next class we were -- we were -- we were 


hindered in our ability to reconstruct internal 


dose, but we were able to reconstruct external 

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dose. And so there was great confusion and 


frustration among the claimants who had time in 


one class, not enough time in the other class, 


and they got caught in this situation -- a 


catch-22 -- where we couldn't reconstruct any 


dose in the first class 'cause it was 


unreliable, and we could reconstruct only 


external dose in the second class. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Does that help? I think that's 

correct. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's -- that's helpful. 

Richard, did you have an additional comment -- 


 MR. MILLER: Because in the February of 2005 


Advisory Board meeting held in St. Louis, Jim 


Neton was specifically asked by the petitioner 


can NIOSH reconstruct external dose, will -- 


can a skin dose be reconstructed, and Jim said 


yes, we have enough data to reconstruct dose. 


Now if you have enough data to at least do a 


minimizing calculation, it would seem to me 


that you would want to -- just as in this case 


here -- you would want to at least attempt a 


minimizing dose, even if it wasn't a complete 


external dose reconstruction. But in 

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Mallinckrodt, the unfortunate thing that 


happened was that I think our friends in the 


Labor Department perceived this as having more 


than one characteristic. One characteristic 


that was in play was could you do the external 


dose; Jim Neton said yes. When presented with 


the administrative record of this body to the 


Labor Department showing Jim's quote, they said 


that there's no -- has no legal weight 


whatsoever. And the response was but wait a 


minute, this was included in the administrative 


record that was transmitted to the Secretary of 


Health and Human Services. How could this be? 


And the answer is the HHS designation is the 


only thing that matters. 


The second thing that was going on was that our 


friends in the Labor Department were trying to 


prove a point to the Board. And the point they 


were trying to prove to the Board is is that 


for the non-presumptive cancers, those people 


were going to be devoid of a remedy, and they 


wanted to make that point as precisely and as 


sharply and as pointedly as possible. And so 


that was coinciding as a policy matter, I 


think, with how they chose to interpret it. So 

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it seems to me -- maybe I'm wrong here -- that 


the greater clarity that goes to the Secretary, 


the better, because your SEC evaluation report 


had a set of boxes in the very back of the 


table, and in that 1943 to '47 time period the 


external dose could be reconstructed. And they 


said but that's not what mattered. What 


mattered was the HHS designation. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well --


 MR. MILLER: I just want to be clear, Larry, 


that --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. MILLER: -- there was more at play than 


what meets the eye. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, but at the end of the day, 


Jim Neton's professional and technical 


expertise was not the weight that carried 


forward this Board's decision and 


recommendation, nor the Secretary's 


designation. You're right, it's in the record 


and we passed the record along. But be that as 


it may -- we take this very seriously, too, 


Richard, and we want to make sure we have the 


right words, too. And we have -- we strive to 


that end --

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 DR. ZIEMER: That's fine, I understand the 


issue now. It -- it appears to me that it 


would serve the Board well where we have this 


kind of situation to amplify what NIOSH tells 


us in their recommendation so that even though 


-- clearly it's the Secretary's recommendation 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- that carries the day, but it 


may be helpful for our record to be very clear 


-- not only on an SEC and its definition, but 


any -- any particular subsets where NIOSH has 


already indicated that they believe they can 


reconstruct dose -- that we either accept or 


not accept that and that be in the record, as 


well. 


 Dr. Melius? 


 DR. MELIUS: And my issue here is that I'm not 


-- would not be ready to accept or not accept 


this recommendation 'cause I -- I mean there 


are some ques-- you know, I think some 


significant questions 'cause we haven't had the 


opportunity to evaluate the data nor sort of 


put it through the same steps that were -- 


would normally be done if we were evaluating it 

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for an SEC, and I think we have to hold the 


same -- hold that data to the same level of 


review and confirmation --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- for that. And I don't know if 


I understood, LaVon, correctly. Is it -- NIOSH 

hasn't really done that either. I mean it's -- 

 MR. RUTHERFORD: No, but --

 DR. MELIUS: -- too early. 

 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- I think what's important to 


note that -- that whether we say we can -- can 


do or not do the external beta/gamma does not 


affect the class, because the class is the 


whole anyway. So the only one it's going to 


affect is whether we can or can't do it for the 


non-presumptive cancers. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Or a particular individual. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I think that's -- exactly. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, if the Board wishes to -- 


there's a couple of options. One is to delay 


an actual decision till say tomorrow or the 


next day. Another is to make a -- what you 


might call a preliminary decision you want to 


support the SEC, and then develop the wording 


before Wednesday or -- that would be one 

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possibility. Another is to simply delay any 


action. What's the pleasure of the Board? 


Wanda. 


 MS. MUNN: It would be my desire to support the 


SEC. It seems fairly obvious to me that 


whether we can or cannot accurately calculate 


dose reconstructions for a portion of the 


class, if we cannot do that for all of the 


class -- which I think that's what I just heard 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 


 MS. MUNN: -- we can't do that for all the 


class -- then it follows that we must therefore 


accept all of the class cannot be adequately 


reconstructed and therefore a Special Exposure 


Cohort must be granted. I understand a portion 


of what the concerns are here, but I -- and I 


understand the fine points within the agencies 


that are involved in doing the dose 


reconstruction. But from a Board point of 


view, it is our job to define whether the class 


can or cannot be properly reconstructed. 
I 


believe what I've heard here is the entire 


class cannot properly be reconstructed and 


therefore I see no reason why the Board should 

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not continue with its assertion that this SEC 


can be recommended to the Secretary. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Is that a comment or a motion? 


 MS. MUNN: That's a motion. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I second that motion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: A motion to approve the SEC and a 


second, and the Chair will rule that this will 


be subject to some final wording 'cause we have 


a fairly elaborate --


 MR. PRESLEY: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- sort of standard set of wording 


and we'll start to ask Jim to help with that 


wording, too, 'cause he has the key -- the key 


stuff on his computer, but -- 


 DR. WADE: I would like to speak to this issue, 


if I might. And I'm not speaking for or 


against because that's not my prerogative, but 


I'd just like to talk for a couple of minutes 


and paint a picture for you. 


We've heard by reference that the Secretary's 


designation is what will be looked at by the 


Department of Labor, so the Secretary's 


designation holds weight, not necessarily the 


recommendation of the Board. When the Board 


made its recommendation on LANL several 

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meetings ago, it did so in an interesting 


structural way. It had a very rigorous 


definition -- designation of a class, and then 


it listed supporting information, and then 


there was record to support that. Given the 


fact that the Secretary's designation is 


paramount, and the Secretary will be influenced 


by the Board's recommendation of designation, I 


would say it's important for the Board to be as 


inclusive in its designation as possible and 


avoid the possibility of having a designation 


and then have other items that support it. So 


to the degree possible, I think you should be 


as inclusive in your -- your recommended 


designation as possible, hopefully to influence 


the Secretary, and it's the Secretary's 


designation that carries weight -- if that 


makes sense to you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I understand what you're saying. 


I guess my question is is -- and it's the 


original question -- how important is it for 


the Board's record to reinforce what NIOSH has 


told us on what it can or cannot do? 


 DR. WADE: I think from my perspective, given 


the fact that it could be important, I would 

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carry that forward and I would carry it forward 


within the recommended designation. 


 MR. GIBSON: Dr. Ziemer? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Mike. 

 MR. GIBSON: I certainly support the motion of 

the SEC, but -- and anyone who deserves 


compensation should get it. But on the other 


hand, I -- you know, if there's someone that 


doesn't have one of the presumptive cancers and 


this takes away their opportunity to file for a 


claim -- I mean I -- I think the ultimate 


answer lays with the Department of Labor, 


doesn't it? No matter what the Secretary of 


Health and Human Services puts forward to the 


Department of Labor, if someone submits a claim 


under B that does not fit this class 


designation or this cohort designation, do they 


get a chance to be compensated or are they just 


left out in the cold? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think that's the original 


question we were asked. I think -- I think 


Larry indicated that those that had non-


presumptive cancers, at least if they're in the 


loop, NIOSH continues looking at them. And I 


was concerned about whether new ones would come 

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through, and I think you are assuming that they 


will --


 MR. ELLIOTT: No, we're seeing -- we're seeing 


new claims come to us on classes that have 


already been established, and we're doing dose 


reconstructions on what we can reconstruct. It 


turns out to be what we call a partial dose 


reconstruction, but we have seen some -- some 


of those --


 DR. ZIEMER: So Labor is sending them forward 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- individuals get compensated, 


but at least they get an answer if they -- if 


they don't. 


 MR. GIBSON: But did you say new cases? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: New cases, yes. 


 MR. GIBSON: But what -- what of those of the 


existing class that don't meet all the criteria 


of the SEC? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Then -- then we proceed with our 


dose reconstruction effort on those up to the 


point, you know, that we can. If we can't 


reconstruct neutron dose, we can't do that, and 


we reconstruct what we can. New -- let me go 


over this one more time. I see -- I see a -- I 

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think you're -- may be confused, maybe I'm 


confusing you, Mike. 


For these 16 claims that we see fitting this 


class for Monsanto, that only worked at 


Monsanto -- I don't know how many of those have 


presumptive cancers, but we would take those 


out that have one of the 22 cancers and send it 


to DOL, send it back to DOL, and they'll work 


that up as an eligible claim under the class. 


If for some reason they find it not to be an 


eligible claim in the class, they'll send it 


back to us for dose reconstruction. 


The remainder of those 16 that didn't have a 


presumptive cancer, one of the 22, once the 


class is designated and becomes a class, we 


would proceed with completing dose 


reconstruction for whatever was found that we 


could reconstruct. We would not be able to 


reconstruct that type of dose that, you know, 


in essence established the class. 


Does that help? I think I've said it two or 


three different ways now, but I've said it the 


same -- with the same intent and meaning behind 


it. 


 MR. GIBSON: And may-- maybe I'm not saying it 

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clear enough or maybe I'm not hearing you 


right, but a person does not meet the criteria, 


say -- say the SEC gets passed, person does not 


meet the criteria of -- for whatever of the 


reasons. They turn -- they turn around and 


file a -- the subsection B, subtitle B, send it 


to the Department of Labor. Is the Department 


of Labor going to sit on it or are they going 


to send it to you? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: If it's a non-presumptive cancer, 


they will refer it to us for dose 


reconstruction. If it's a presumptive cancer, 


we'll never see it. It'll be processed by DOL 


as an SEC case, just like we -- just like what 


happened for the original four Congressional 


classes in the Special Exposure Cohort. We 


never saw a bunch of those claims from Pike-- 


from Piketon, Ohio, from K-25, Paduc-- you 


know, we didn't see any of those. But we did 


see claims come to us from DOL that were non-


presumptive cancers that we had to reconstruct 


dose for. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay? 


 DR. MELIUS: I have --


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim. 

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 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I -- I think the question -- 


at least one of the questions -- is does it 


make any difference whether we reach a finding 


that it is possible to reconstruct, you know, 


external doses or some other -- such that it is 


 DR. ZIEMER: Exactly, that's the point. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- in the context. I think that's 


what we're trying to -- and -- in a la-- two or 


three meetings ago I think -- statement at 


least from Larry, and I thought reinforced by 


the Department of Labor, but my recollection 


may be wrong there, was that it was important 


that we do that. So I think that sort of -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I know we did it in at least 


one case --


 DR. MELIUS: No, we --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and maybe in two, and -- and 


the -- the record that goes forward is not just 


our recommendation but the NIOSH evaluation 


report goes forward with the -- with the 


charts, too. The Secretary has all of that 


information and --


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- it is part of the record, as 

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well. Larry. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I was just going to say we've 


done a number of these of late where we've 


tried to be very specific with what we felt we 


could reconstruct dose for and -- and segregate 


that from what we couldn't reconstruct dose 


for. The reason that's important is so that 


those non-presumptive claims -- we can continue 


our work on them --


 DR. ZIEMER: And I think --


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- (unintelligible) reconstruct 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Jim, you -- your concern is 


kind of the flip side. If they've said they 


can reconstruct dose, do we actually know 


that's the case on those. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, be-- because very often they 


-- they have a belief that they can do it -- I 


mean it may be sound technical grounds for -- 


I'm not dismissing it, but they really haven't 


gone through the steps of -- of actually doing 


it in some of these cases, and I think this is 


an example of those. And certainly just based 


on the little information that was presented 


here, I -- I -- if this were presented to me as 

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an SEC and, you know, say all the -- all the 


other internal doses, everything else could 


have been reconstructed and they presented -- 


but this is an external dose, I -- based on the 


information so far, I -- and they said they 


could reconstr-- I would have serious questions 


about it. I'd say, you know, give us a lot 


more evidence on it. So I would be reluctant, 


as a Board, to endorse that -- that finding 


'cause I don't think we've been presented with 


enough information to be able to support that 


particular finding and -- based on what they've 


done so far. Now others may feel differently, 


but I'm just saying that that would be, 


therefore I -- the question I think is sort of 


procedurally -- is -- I'm trying to understand 


is does it make any difference whether we make 


a statement about what they can do in the 


context of putting forward an SEC 


recommendation. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. I look at it a little more 


generic than that. I think where they say they 


can reconstruct dose is in the context of there 


are certain kinds of data, monitoring data, 


available. It var-- it still could occur that 

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in an individual case -- an individual case, 


you could not reconstruct dose. 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But it seems to me that -- that 


generically, and that's what we're talking 


about here, that there are certain kinds of -- 


of information in the records that would say 


okay, I can do, for example, external dose if 


it's gamma, but I can't do the neutron. 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I mean just the nature of the 

records. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Right. I take you back to what 

our rule says, and the rule says it's -- we can 


reconstruct dose with sufficient accuracy if we 


can provide them a maximum bound. And the data 


that we've seen on what LaVon has presented to 


you, we feel that that enables us to 


reconstruct dose as we -- as we see the data, 


as we look at the data. I don't think, in my 


opinion, it makes -- it doesn't put us in a bad 


position if you don't comment on what we are 


saying we can reconstruct at this point. No, 


we have not brought to you a full-fledged set 


of dose reconstruction examples. We have not 

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spoken in depth about representativeness of the 


data. We've only given you a cursory review of 


the data at hand, and we're asking you to, you 


know, take it on our -- on face value that, you 


know, as we go through this and approach it, we 


can do what we say we can do -- or we're going 


to identify that we can't. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: But we think it's important where 


we've stumbled across this and we can't 


reconstruct dose, we want to get it done and 


get it in front of you now. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And I'm wondering if we couldn't 


word it in such a way that recognizes that 


there may be cases for non-presumptive cancers 


where indeed the dose can be reconstructed, 


without necessarily getting into the issues of 


data quality and all of those kinds of things, 


sort of the flip side of that, which basically 


says in -- it's -- it's trying to keep the door 


open, I think is what we're saying, to keep the 


door open for the non-presumptive cancer cases 


that may have the opportunity to go forward. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: If that helps keep it open. Maybe 

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it doesn't help. 


 DR. MELIUS: I think that is the question 


'cause I think -- if you remember, when we 


started we assumed that we didn't have to say 


anything about that, with the original. And 


then we said no, let's -- on advice, we thought 


it was important that we did include 


information with a very specific recommenda-- 


finding that we agreed with NIOSH's findings 


that they could reconstruct dose. 


Now we're hearing well, maybe it's not as 


important as we thought it was, and I'm just 


trying to figure out what's the best way of 


communicating with that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: If it is important, then I -- then 


I think the subsidiary question is well, as we 


communicate that to the Secretary, should we 


wait until we have the full package together or 


-- or do we go at -- or sort of partially now 


and -- and do -- the other -- I mean there's a 


whole bunch of --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- different situations -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well --
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 DR. MELIUS: -- and it's --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- I'm sort of thinking of it in 


these terms: that if we could state in the 


pet-- in our recommendation that we recognize 


that NIOSH believes that it can reconstruct 


doses in -- in certain cases, and that in such 


cases we encourage the claimants to go forward 


-- or something to that effect -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- without -- if that helps keep 


that door open. Maybe it doesn't make any 


difference at this point, we don't know. 


 DR. WADE: I think it does. I think it's a 


good thing to do, and my long-winded statement 


is I think to do that within your 


recommendation of a designation increases the 


probability that it will make its way into the 


Secretary's designation and then be part of the 


final record. 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 


 DR. WADE: That's all I'm saying. I think it's 


important that you do it. The last time you 


did it, you did it -- you made your 


designation, then you listed supporting 


reasons. I think it would be better to think 

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of framing it within the designation itself so 


that it goes forward as part of the 


designation. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And I'm -- I'm saying that I don't 


think that we have to say that we have 


confirmed that they can do that. 


 DR. WADE: That's right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But that we recognize that they 


believe they can and therefore it should be 


considered, or something to that effect. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, and that's --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, yeah. Jim. 

 DR. LOCKEY: Paul, I agree with you 100 

percent, that we just put a statement in -- 


boilerplate statement that says for SE-- SEC 


class that's been approved, those petitioners 


that have a non-presumptive cancer still have 


an avenue -- additional avenue to pursue -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. LOCKEY: -- (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda, did you have an additional 


comment? 


 MS. MUNN: It was more of a miscellaneous 


thought. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I've got a lot of those, too. 

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 DR. WADE: More as you get older. 


 MS. MUNN: And I'll have to even think about my 


thought for a little bit. It concerns me that 


-- the wisdom of our getting into parsing each 


of these SECs after they've been so clearly 


identified and parsing what can be done and 


what can't be done. NIOSH is very clear in 


their report to us what they can do. I -- and 


it seems to me very clear in -- in telling us 


what they cannot do. I -- I just don't see the 


wisdom of getting in a position where we are 


asking them to prove that they can't do what 


they've already said they can't do. And if --


if we're not asking them to prove what they 


can't do, then since the class is very clearly 


defined here -- as I said earlier -- there 


seems to be no reason to not go forward with 


the SEC. They said what they can do. They 


said what they cannot do. What they cannot do 


is encompass all individuals who fit the class 


as defined. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and I think we all agree on 


that part of it. Perhaps what we can do -- 


let's move ahead on this. I'm going to call 


for a vote on this motion, recognizing that 

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it's a kind of general generic motion to 


approve or disapprove the SEC, with the caveat 


that the exact wording of the motion will come 


back to us before the end of this meeting and 


you will have a chance to see what those words 


look like if there are any qualifiers in it 


that -- that can lead to levels of either 


comfort or discomfort -- if that's agreeable. 


So what we are -- basically would be voting on 


is not the issue of any additional caveats, but 


the issue of support for the SEC. Comment 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. GRIFFON: Is it necessary to call for a 


vote right now? I'm just wondering if we can ­

-


 DR. ZIEMER: No, we can table -- you can call 


for a tabling of the vote, if you wish. If we 


approve this vote, it would simply say we're 


going to go ahead and work on the exact wording 


of what it looks like, and -- and we can -- we 


can do that anyway and reserve the vote till we 


have the wording. That's --


 MR. GRIFFON: I think we should vote -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- if you want to -- if you want a 


motion to table, we can do that. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I'm not doing that yet, but 


I think we should -- I would like to vote at 


this meeting for sure, but I -- I think I want 


to ponder -- the other question I have on this 


is not only -- I think we -- the -- the way 


that it was just stated about how to handle the 


areas where you can do dose reconstruction 


satis-- I think we can work with the language 


around that. I still have some questions about 


the internal dose items that NIOSH says they 


can't do. And quite frankly, I think I want to 


at least mull that over a little more, only 


because I think there's a equal treatment issue 


here. I think we have to be careful that there 


-- there's some other sites where there've been 


some pretty thin amounts of data and we've -- 


NIOSH has determined that they can do dose 


reconstructions. So I -- when LaVon says -- 


and it might be in the report that I didn't go 


through as thoroughly as I should have before 


this meeting, but when NIOSH says there's very 


little air sampling information, very little -- 


I mean I have no reason not to believe them, 


but I -- for myself, I'd like to at least take 


a closer look at that. And if they have any 

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supporting documents that we might look at in 


that regard in the next two days or next one 


day, I'd rather wait and see that and then make 


a call on that, simply because I think that we 


-- we also need to consider this in the larger 


picture, that we're not -- that we're 


consistent in the way we're ruling on these 


things. If it's -- if it's very little data, 


what do we mean by very little data; what do we 


mean by enough is enough when we review, you 


know, sites like Rocky Flats for lengthy 


periods of time. So I -- you know... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Are you making a motion to table? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I -- I'm listening -- if 


Wanda has a response, I'll listen to that 


before I make any motion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Do you have any comment? 


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) No, Jim's 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. MELIUS: I was going to second his motion. 


I was waiting --


 MR. GRIFFON: Then I don't make a motion to -- 

 DR. MELIUS: I actually had a separate comment, 

but I'll... 

 DR. ZIEMER: A motion to table? 
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 MR. GRIFFON: I'll make a motion to table. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Until? Not indefinitely, until... 


 MR. GRIFFON: Before the end of this meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. It's got to come off the 


table --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- before the meeting's over. Is 


that a second? 


 DR. MELIUS: I'll second that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: This is a non-debatable motion. 


We have to vote immediately. All in favor of 


tabling, with the understanding that the motion 


comes off the table before the meeting is over, 


say aye? 


 (Affirmative responses) 


Wait a minute, let me call for a show of hands 


so we can get a count. 


All in favor of tabling -- one, two, three, 


four, five. 


 All opposed to tabling? One, two, three -- 


then the ayes have it. The motion is tabled 


till later in the meeting. Thank you. 


 DR. MELIUS: I have some other -- can I ask 


Brant some more questions? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

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74

 DR. MELIUS: On something else. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh. 


 DR. WADE: You mean LaVon? 


 DR. MELIUS: But relevant to this. I'm just 


trying to understand what it means in the 


definition you put a -- by monitored, or should 


have been monitored. What -- what are the -- 


what is the factual basis for that relevant to 


this particular --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, that was based -- that's 


basically individuals that had -- would -- 


under today's criteria, should have been 


monitored. Okay? If you were to look at it 


that way. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, that wording comes out of 


the regulation, I believe. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, but --


 MR. GRIFFON: But do we have enough -- well, go 


ahead. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I'm just trying to 


understand the -- the -- how that would be 


applied in -- in this particular circumstance 


based on what -- the evaluation that NIOSH has 

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done of this facility. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, I don't think NIOSH -- I 


don't think our evaluation has -- has excluded 


anyone, with the exception of Unit II where 


they -- that was the -- where they did the 


rocket propellant and didn't work with any 


radioactive material. So anyone that worked in 


those other buildings would be part of that 


class, because we did not have the information 


that we could separate anyone out of that class 


in those facilities. Do you -- do you --


 DR. MELIUS: No, I'm understan-- and I guess my 


question -- reason I wanted to bring this up is 


-- is -- then I'd be interested in Larry's 


comments or comments from anybody else that's ­

- from DOL, is should we be more specific in 


our definition of the class, 'cause I think, 


you know, based on what you presented in your 


report, one certainly would -- I think I'd 


agree that you'd exclude people from that one 


building 'cause it --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, we didn't include that 


building in -- in the class definition. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Unit -- it goes Unit I, III 

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and IV. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: So Unit II is excluded from 


that building -- from that class. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Monitored or unmonitored comes 


out of language that was used in the 


Congressional mandated SEC classes. It shows ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: Monitored or should have been 

monitored. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Monitored or should have been 

monitored, I'm sorry. And as LaVon indicated, 


we interpret that to mean unmonitored not only 


in the early years, but should have been 


monitored by today's standards, or should have 


been monitored if they -- they went into the 


building where the -- the exposure occurred, 


but they were never monitored. So it's -- it's 


more inclusive to use that language. If we 


don't use it, we find ourselves dealing with 


DOL on excluding people. 


 DR. MELIUS: No, I -- well, in this case where 


all the external monitoring is essentially -- 


you know, can't be identified individuals, 


maybe a lot of people that were monitored that 

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you have no records of being monitored. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That's possible. That's very 

possible --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, yeah. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- but by listing the buildings 

where the radioactive material was handled and 


processed, then all a person has to do -- all a 


claimant has to do as -- my understanding in 


watching DOL process these, is provide some 


sort of affidavit or some verification that 


they were present in those buildings. 


I think you asked also about does it have 


benefit to place in your language -- your 


definition language -- what type of exposure. 


And I think we went down this path with thorium 


on one class definition and we ended up going 


back and forth with DOL on that, too. I don't 


think it benefits a lot to specify the type of 


-- of radioactive material that can't be 


reconstructed. I think that causes more 


problems than it causes benefit. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I agree with that. I'm not 


sure -- well, I'm -- I'm just wondering how DOL 


interprets monitored or should have been 


monitored. I don't think mere presence in 

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those buildings would constitute meeting that 


criteria, would it? 'Cause you're talking 


about current standards, so mere presence -- if 


they were an administrative worker, for 


instance, within that building but not -- are 


they going to make a subjective judgment based 


on job title or other factors. I think they 


do, don't they? Or... 


 MR. ELLIOTT: They do, and -- and we've been 


conversing with DOL about this in a number of 


class situations. Guards come up -- we believe 


guards are exposed in the -- once they walk in 


the building, they're exposed. Okay? An 


administrative person who sits in an office in 


one of these buildings has a potential for 


being exposed. You know? If you're inside the 


four walls of a building, you're exposed. 


That's our take on it. That's what we argue 


with -- with these folks, and they haven't been 


receptive to that, to this point, so... 


 MR. GRIFFON: So -- so do we ha-- I mean is it 


worth us in our write-up to be more specific, 


you know, if we say, you know, we understand 


this to be presence in the building? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I think this goes back to what 

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Dr. Wade was trying to help you with before in 


his commentary. Be as specific as you can, and 


that -- hopefully that will find its way into 


the Secretary's designation. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thanks. Okay. Then we're ready 


to move on to the next item. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Who's -- who's going to come up 


with the wording for the motion? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, Jim's going to take the lead 


on it --


 DR. MELIUS: I'm starting it --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- because he has the basic 


outline, but others can suggest. 


 DR. MELIUS: (Unintelligible) to my neighbor. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let's see how we are. 


 MR. PRESLEY: (Unintelligible) more than happy 


to. 


 DR. WADE: You want us to take a break now? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think we -- yeah, we've 


gone a little longer than we'd planned on LaVon 


-- LaVon, if it's all right, we'll take our 


ten-minute break here -- comfort break -- and 


then resume. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Thank you. 

80

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 DR. ZIEMER: Mark will take a ten-minute 


comfort break. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 2:43 p.m. 


to 3:00 p.m.) 


GENERAL ATOMICS SEC PETITION
 

MR. LAVON RUTHERFORD, NIOSH/OCAS


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we'll resume our 


deliberations now. Our next item for 


discussion is the SEC petition for General 


Atomics, and LaVon Rutherford will present the 


NIOSH evaluation report. Again, we should ask 


if there are any petitioners on the phone for 


this particular discussion. Anyone 


representing General Atomics? 


 (No responses) 


 Apparently not, but there -- LaVon, please 


proceed. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: All right, thank -- can 


everyone hear me still? Okay. 


Thank you, Dr. Ziemer, Board, for giving me the 


opportunity to speak on behalf of our 


evaluation -- the General Atomics Special 


Exposure Cohort petition evaluation. 


All right. The General Atomics petition is a 


petition that -- where NIOSH determined that 


dose reconstruction was not feasible for a -- a 

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81 

claimant, and we sub-- informed that claimant 


that dose reconstruction was not feasible and 


so when we informed the claimant that it's not 


feasible, we sent the -- that claimant a 


petition form A and we started the 83.14 


process. 


 Unfortunately my notes got messed up. 


(Pause) 


When we -- when we determine that we cannot do 


dose reconstruction, we go through the 83.14 


process, what we look at during the evaluation 


is we're looking for basically defining the 


boundaries of the class. We've already 


determined we can't do dose reconstruction for 


an individual. Now we need to find the 


boundaries of the class that we've -- we've 


started to identify. 


The 83.14 process is the same process in that 


we look at two -- the two-pronged test. We 


look at feasibility whether we can do dose 


reconstruction, and then we look at health 


endangerment, was -- is there a potential 


likelihood that such radiation doses may have 


endangered the health of those... 


 General Atomics is a private contractor for the 

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AEC from 1960 through 1969. They operated 


under the license under the Atomic Energy 


Commission and later under the State of 


California. They performed a number of 


radiological operations, both for the AEC and 


commercial operations as well. 


As I mentioned, they performed a number of 


operations for the Atomic Energy Commission. 


They processed unirradiated scrap of depleted 


uranium, normal uranium and highly enriched 


uranium. They did hot cell work. In that hot 


cell work they looked at a -- they did 


examinations of Department fuels, structural 


materials, and they also did a number of -- or 


of other tests. 


 Other commercial activities that were performed 


during the class period are developing and 


fabricating reactor fuels, reclaiming highly 


enriched uranium, fusion research, operating 


experimental criticality facilities, and 


operating other experimental facilities. 


 The radiological sources, highly enriched 


uranium and thorium from fuel fabrication, 


plutonium oxide from research and development 


work, activation products and fission products 

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from the irradiated reactor fuels. 


 Our information available for dose 


reconstruction, had limited bioassay from the 


1960 to '63 period. In 1963 they started a 


routine bioassay program and then -- however, 


that bioassay program focused more on uranium. 


There was no thorium bioassay monitoring during 


the period. There's some whole body monitoring 


data that's available in 1966 and it's spotty 


from that point on. However, the whole body 


counting was -- was focused on workers that 


worked in the highly enriched uranium and ur-- 


divisions. They were not -- they did not do 


any whole body monitoring on thorium workers. 


 External monitoring data, we have external 


monitoring data, both beta/gamma and neutron 


data, through the entire operational period. 


We also have direct and indirect dosimeter data 


-- basically the little, you know, direct 


reading dosimeters for -- for operations. We 


have extremity do-- data, finger rings. We 


also have data that we received that -- when we 


looked through the claimant files we had 


indications that they were required -- for 


annual X-rays. 

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Petition overview, NIOSH determined that we 


were unable to do a -- a complete dose 


reconstruction for an existing claim, as I 


mentioned earlier, and on June 30th, 2006 a 


claimant was notified that dose reconstruction 


could not be completed and was supplied a Form 


A. The Form A is a -- is -- is basically a 


form that allows the petitioner to petition for 


a -- for being added to the Special Exposure 


Cohort. Petition was submitted to NIOSH on 


July 17th, 2006. 


NIOSH concluded that NIOSH lacks monitoring, 


process or source information sufficient to 


estimate the internal radiation doses from 


thorium exposures from General Atomics 


employees for the period of January 1, 1960 


through December 31st, 1969, which is the 


entire covered period. 


NIOSH has sufficient information to estimate 


the internal doses from uranium, and 


occupational external exposures including 


medical exposures for that period. 


NIOSH has determined that it is not feasible, 


as I said, to estimate with sufficient accuracy 


internal radiation doses, and that the health 

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of the covered employees may have been 


endangered. 


 The evidence indicates that workers in the 


class may have been ex-- may have accumulated 


intakes of thorium during the covered period. 


 Our proposed class -- and I'm not going to read 


that 'cause there are a number of buildings, 


but these buildings are associated with 


radiological activities. 


 Our recommendation is for the period of January 


1, 1960 through December 31st, 1969 we cannot 


do dose reconstructions for that period, or 


it's not feasible with sufficient accuracy, and 


that -- we indicate that health was endangered. 


And that's it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. The -- this 


petition is focused largely on thorium. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: That's correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And as I look through the General 


Atomics list of facilities -- for example, the 


linear accelerator -- is there any reason to 


believe there would be thorium in that 


facility? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Actually they did do 


accelerator work where they actually -- 

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 DR. ZIEMER: They activated thorium? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. What about the analytical 


health physics lab? If --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- let's see, it's listed as -- 


I'm looking here --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I think what --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- yeah, Building 10 -- Building 


10, if that's truly a radioanalytical lab, by 


definition you almost have to have really low 


levels in there in order for it to do its job, 


so --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I think our determination was 


that we really didn't have enough information 


to -- to separate it out --


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- so we -- we left it in 


there. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So you don't really know what they 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: No. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- were doing in there 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, we know that they did do 

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-- they -- that thorium was in the -- and -- I 


mean they did some analysis work in there, but 


-- but as you said, I mean, typically you're 


not -- you don't see large quantities. 


However, we didn't have enough information to 


really make that determination. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other questions on this 


particular one? Yeah, Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, I guess my question's along 


the same lines as -- as Paul's. I mean I had 


trouble understanding the basis for why 


different buildings were included or excluded, 


so my -- my question would be what -- what was 


the basis of your investigation and your 


information basis for this? Why --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well --


 DR. MELIUS: -- effort to look at this 


facility. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: If you look at -- we didn't 


really exclude buil-- what buildings we 


excluded were buildings that we knew were 


administrative buildings. We had good 


documentation to support that they were 


administrative buildings. We had enough 


information to -- to identify that -- that 

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thorium operations were conducted in -- in a 


large number of facilities and thorium -- 


thorium was used in num-- in a lot -- a lot of 


different processes and -- and that we -- and 


from that that we couldn't make enough -- there 


was not enough information to actually pull any 


of these in -- buildings that we had identified 


in the class out, so those are all facilities 


that radiological work was being conducted at 


the time. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but -- but what I guess my 


question is, at least for the record, what was 


the -- but how vigorously did you look for 


information, I guess is -- is the question. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, we -- we looked through 


a number of sources, like we looked at our site 


research database there. We -- we looked in -- 


you know, we contacted General Atomics. We 


looked at our claimant files, you know, so a 


number of sources were looked at for 


information and there was no internal 


monitoring data. We actually had documentation 


that supported that there was no internal -- 


indicated that they did not perform monitoring 


for thorium. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: LaVon, were labs like General 


Atomic, even though they are contractors to 


what was then the AEC, were they required to be 


licensed by the AEC --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: They were licensed -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- or by the State of California? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: They were initially licensed 


by the AEC and then later by the State of 


California. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And do -- do we have any records 


from either agency on -- on inspection reports 


or were tho-- are those part of the record? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: We have not -- we had not 


recovered any. Now that doesn't mean that -- 


that those may not -- or may potentially exist 


at, you know, some new -- at the NRC or some 


other facility that we've not been able to -- 


you know, not been able to recover at this 


time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: If -- I think they also had a 


reactor there. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, they had a number of 


reactors. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Which would probably be licensed 


even separately --

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 MR. RUTHERFORD: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- from the rest of the facility. 


I'm just wondering -- a facility like that 


would have been subject to at least annual 


inspection by AEC and later by the State of 


California, or both. It just occurs to me that 


inspection reports of that type might lead to 


some valuable information about the 


radiological conditions in the facility. I'm 


just wondering if -- if those haven't been 


looked at, whether they should have or could be 


looked at. They certainly would be somewhere 


in the records. But as a matter of course -- 


and this sort of just occurred to me -- as a 


matter of course, we -- we don't look at those 


kind of records --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, we do, you know, we 


actually --


 DR. ZIEMER: We do as a matter of --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, if -- a number -- I mean 


a lot of the data -- you know, if -- if we have 


-- if the data is available to us, we will 


definitely look at that data. I mean, you 


know, we try to look at all documents that -- 


that potentially will have information to 

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support dose reconstruction. However, a lot of 


the information we haven't been able to 


uncover, you know, and -- and some information, 


you know, we -- we are -- started to do more 


data captures with the Nuclear Regulatory 


Commission and -- and other organizations to 


try to get more information. However, at this 


time we have been unable to come up with enough 


information to do dose reconstruction at 


General Atomics. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but -- but --

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Jim or Mark, go ahead. 

 DR. MELIUS: Go ahead, Mark. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I'm just -- I mean I'm just a 

little confused on the -- and -- and it might 


be a question of -- of the form, but I -- in 


the -- in the document here, it's the Tech 


Basis Document for the site, it talks about 400 


boxes containing records of radiological 


activities at General Atomics exist; 50 boxes 


were examined and copies of records considered 


germane to EEOICPA were made. So you did a 


sampling effort of these 400 or -- or -- 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: No, we looked through those 


documents and we determined that there was no 

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thorium monitoring --


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- that's why --


 MR. GRIFFON: So you did look through all 400 


and --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, but what I indicated was 


that there's -- you know -- I mean we go 


through all the documents that we have 


available. Now there may be -- I think in any 


case -- in any case, it's not a -- you know, an 


exhaustive process, meaning that there are 


other places where data may exist that we've 


missed and we may at some point uncover that 


data. So at this time we haven't uncovered 


data, and we felt it appropriate to move 


forward with this 83.14. 


 MR. PRESLEY: LaVon --


 DR. ZIEMER: Robert, and then Jim. 


 MR. PRESLEY: -- did I understand you to say 


that there's -- you also found a listing that ­

- where there was work at the Test Site from 


General Atomics? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I don't know that I said that. 


 MR. PRESLEY: No, that's what I was wondering. 


I -- I misunderstood you, then. 

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 MR. RUTHERFORD: No. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim? 


 DR. LOCKEY: Paul, you had asked the question ­

- did you look at AEC in California, you did 


look for any records there? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, I -- I can't -- I don't 


-- I don't remember whether we actually called 


AEC, or called California, the State, to get 


records or not. I'd have to go back and 


actually check with our data capture people and 


see if they actually did contact them, so I 


can't -- I can't really answer that one. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Gen Roessler? 


DR. ROESSLER: I think we're probably all going 


in the same direction, but it seems like it's a 


huge leap to go from one claimant to then 


including so many different facilities, and by 


different, it's been -- you know, across a wide 


range of activities. What I'm thinking of is 


as you recommend classes for an SEC, you 


actually recommend them, that we keep in mind 


the fairness and consistency of the whole 


program; that the decisions that are made here 


will then need to apply in the future. And 

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we've talked about this I think a lot and I 


think that's one of the questions we're asking. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I understand. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Just another comment, because the 


LINAC had bothered me a little bit because I 


know that even in typical activation 


experiments the targets usually are awfully 


small, mass-wise. And I can't imagine large 


amounts of thorium being in the LINAC facility, 


but -- but we don't have any way of knowing one 


way or another, I guess. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: And -- and the other -- well ­

- well, I mean -- you don't have en-- you don't 


have the information available to know, and I 


don't know that it's going to change -- I mean 


if we separate it out, we've got to have a good 


basis for separating it out, so -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, yeah, but that's sort of 


what I'm getting at, and I think Gen is getting 


at. I mean does one size fit all here or does 


it make a difference whether you were in the 


analytical lab or in the -- in the reactor 


facility or the hot cell facility or the LINAC? 


These are all -- I mean in typical 


installations these are all very different 

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kinds of facilities. 


Other comments -- or questions? Larry, you 


have a comment? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Take due note of your comment 


there, Dr. Ziemer, but at each one of these 


individual buildings on this covered facility, 


we tie it to thorium, I believe. Right, LaVon? 


So you know --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I -- I understood that, but 


-- that's why I was saying, for example, it 


would seem to me -- and this is more intuitive. 


I have no way of knowing. But for example, I ­

- I have a hard time imagining large masses of 


thorium in a LINAC where you typically are 


taking a little target and activating it for 


some kind of analytical procedure or something. 


Or -- or in the analytical lab where you're 


doing -- where you're usually trying to count 


low levels of things, it -- it's hard to 


imagine very big source terms in some of those 


buildings, as opposed to a hot cell where you 


expect to be handling large amounts, or even in 


the reactor itself where they're testing fuel 


elements. In -- in the fusion building if 


they're -- I don't know why you would have 

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thorium in a fusion building. I -- you would 


have tritium there, but why would you have 


thorium? So it's -- it's those kinds of 


questions that pop into my mind that say does 


one size fit all here, and may-- maybe -- maybe 


the data are inadequate to -- to answer the 


question and that's why you're forced into sort 


of saying we sort of have to assume thorium 


everywhere. But it seems, intuitively, like a 


stretch. That's all I -- 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, and -- and you made the 


point. I mean the process requires us pretty 


much if we're going to say it's -- it's not -- 


we're not included it, we're going to have to 


defend why we're not. It's a... 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, I would -- no argument here 


with you, Dr. Ziemer. I would just point out 


that the -- you know, when we talk about what 


happened, like in the science laboratories, we 


go so far here as to say that the operations 


included the grinding of thorium, which you 


wouldn't typically, you know, think of 


intuitively in a laboratory situation. 


So you know, I -- I also would make -- want to 


make sure that the record speaks to this, and 

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this is timeliness. You know --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, (unintelligible) understand, 


yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- this is one of these sites 


where we've been struggling with trying to 


reconstruct dose --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- and we've come forward with an 


83.14 situation. I don't know if LaVon's been 


as clear as I would like for him to be in 


explaining that we have looked at all sources 


of records and data that we could possibly find 


in a timely fashion, and we've just reached our 


-- the end of that rope and we -- now we -- we 


have been to NRC. We have not perhaps been to 


the State, but I know this one was discussed as 


far as NRC data pertinent to this site, so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now this -- this site, though, is 


more of a -- well, it's a laboratory. If --


for example, I would expect grinding in a 


laboratory to be -- it wouldn't be like 


production-level grinding like you -- you know, 


it's not a Bethlehem Steel or something like 


that where you're grinding huge masses. It 


might be somebody at a mortar and pestle or 

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something, you know. So issues of scale come 


into play also in some of these kinds of 


facilities. But there again, it would seem to 


me, if it hadn't already occurred, if one had 


the annual inspections of a regulatory body, 


you'd get a pretty good idea of the 


radiological condition in -- in some of these, 


'cause this is a pretty broad variety of -- 


this is not a facility doing one thing. 


There's a lot of different things going on 


here. 


Jim, you have an additional question? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. Yeah, I -- I guess what my 


-- my question is -- I'm presuming that ORAU 


did the work on this? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. Would it be possible to 


check with the technical staff at ORAU who 


headed this to -- to get a little better idea 


of how thorough their, you know, attempt was to 


get additional information, and particularly if 


they had, you know, looked for or sought out 


either the State or the NRC records and what 


was the, you know, result of that -- those 


inquiries? 

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 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes, we can -- we can --


 DR. MELIUS: I mean I think that's something 


that might be done and then we could, you know, 


postpone our consideration of this until 


tomorrow or the next day. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That might be a possibility. Let 


me also ask, do we -- do we have other claims 


from this site where we've not been successful 


in reconstructing dose, or just the one, or are 


there some claims that have been successfully 


reconstructed for this site? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: To date, I show 111 claims have 


been referred to us for dose reconstruction 


from DOL. We have completed 18, 11 of which 


were greater than -- were compensable, seven 


were non-compensable. We have 68 pended. I 


can't speak about those 18. They may have had 


time at someplace else, you know, other data, I 


 DR. ZIEMER: But the compensable ones then were 


compensable without even considering the 


thorium --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, must --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- I presume. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- have been, yeah. 

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100

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: And those seven may come back to 


us once this class is dealt with. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Board members -- another 


comment, Jim? 


 DR. MELIUS: No, I'm sorry. 


 DR. ZIEMER: What is your pleasure on -- on 


this? We can ask for additional information, 


if you wish. We can make a motion, or we can ­

- we can delay action. What would you --


 DR. LOCKEY: I move we table until we get the 


additional information. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Motion to table. That's got a 


caveat with it that we get some additional 


information. Be -- be specific, what -- 


 DR. LOCKEY: NRC and California --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- information would you like to 


see? 


 DR. LOCKEY: NRC and California. I'd like to 


know whether they were looked at. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I'll second. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And seconded. This is a motion to 


table then. It's not debatable. I don't know 


if motions to table can have -- well, the 

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caveat is that that will bring it off the table 


if the information is available. 


 DR. LOCKEY: That's correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: All in favor, aye? Or let me call 


for a show of hands -- one, two, three, four, 


five, six, seven, eight -- the ayes have it. 


The motion -- motion to table carries and we'll 


request that -- LaVon, that if possible you try 


to get that information. Whether or not that 


will help us, we don't know. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That might -- it may be helpful to 


find out, one way or the other, if such 


information exists and, if so, what were the 


outcomes. 


 Any other comments on this petition? 


 (No responses) 


STATUS OF UPCOMING SEC PETITIONS
 

MR. LAVON RUTHERFORD, NIOSH/OCAS
 

Okay. Now we have a whole laundry list of sort 


of informational items and -- I guess this is 


the LaVon Rutherford day. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, it is. 


 DR. ZIEMER: LaVon, status of upcoming 


petitions, I guess maybe you'll just go down 


the list and give us an update on various ones 

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here? 


 DR. WADE: Again, I think the importance of 


this agenda item we've just sort of 


experienced, that you've come -- petitions have 


come to you for the first time and you've said 


well, we want this and we want that. The 


purpose here is to give you a preview of coming 


attractions so maybe you can start to request 


the types of information you'd like to see when 


these positions -- petitions are brought to 


you. 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: All right. As Dr. Ziemer had 


mentioned, I'm going to give you a status of 


upcoming SEC petitions. The intention or 


purpose is to provide the Advisory Board an 


update to what SEC petition evaluations we have 


coming down that are going to be completed here 


in the near future, and our hope is that this 


information will support the -- help prepare 


the Advisory Board for future working groups 


and future Board meetings. 


To date we've received -- actually as of 


December 31st -- or December 1st we'd received 


79 SEC petitions. Actually we picked up two 


additional last week, after this presentation 

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was prepared, so we actually have now 81 SEC 


petitions. We have 12 SEC petitions that are 


in the qualification process. They have not 


been qualified to date. We have 30 SEC 


petitions that have qualified and that are in 


various phases, either -- either the evaluation 


report's being prepared; the evaluation 


report's complete, presented to the Board and 


waiting for Board determination; or they've 


completed all the way through HHS. And then 


we've had 31 SEC petitions that did not 


qualify. 


You'll note that there were six petitions that 


were actually received prior to the rule 


becoming final. Those petitioners were given 


the opportunity to -- we sent them a letter 


after the rule became final and -- outlining 


the criteria in the rule and offering them the 


chance to petition again. 


Currently we have a number of petitions that 


are in the evaluation process. The Los Alamos 


National Lab, we anticipate completing that 


evaluation report in January of 2007. That is 


an 83.13 petition. 


Bethlehem Steel, we are in the evaluation 

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process and plan completion in February, 2007. 


 Hanford is May of 2007; Sandia National Lab 


Livermore is April of 2007; and then Dow 


Chemical is an 83.14 and at this time we -- we 


had hoped to have Dow Chemical complete for 


this Board meeting in December. However, we 


were looking at some more resources -- data -- 


potential data resources and we were unable to 


get that complete. We anticipate completing 


that report in January and presenting at the 


February Board meeting. 


In addition we've completed the evaluation of 


the Feed Materials Production Center. The 


evaluation report was completed, submitted to 


the Board and to the -- and to the petitioners. 


We plan to present that evaluation at the 


February, 2007 Advisory Board meeting. 


We have some sites that we are currently 


working on 83.14s. W. R. Grace, right now we 


have approved an initial proposed class and 


professional judgment from May 1 of '58 to 


December 31, 1970. We're looking at existing 


claims to determine a representative case; and 


once we've found that representative case we 


will move forward through the 83.14 process 

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with that individual. We anticipate completing 


the process, the evaluation report being 


presented to the Board in January of 2007. 


We have 11 sites that we've currently 


identified that -- that there's a potential 


that these -- that we will move down the 83.14 


process. Right now we have not -- we do not 


have enough information at this time to -- to 


complete dose reconstruction for these sites 


and so right now we anticipate we will move 


down the 83.14 process with these sites. 


These 11 sites -- our contractor, ORAU, is 


currently drafting initial class proposals and 


professional judgments for NIOSH review and 


approval. And once we've -- once we've 


reviewed them, approved them, then we will 


start moving down the 83.14 process with those. 


We also anticipate that there will be 


additional sites that will be identified, 


either through our -- our contr-- either 


through review with our contractor with ORAU or 


our Battelle contractor. 


And that's it. Questions? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Let's open this for 


questions, questions on schedule, on 

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facilities, any related issues. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Jim. 

 DR. MELIUS: Sorry, Paul. Believe in the past 

you've -- or Larry or Jim Neton has -- have 


referred to this ORAU contract effort to 


identify sites where dose reconstructions were 


likely not to be completed, and believe the 


last time I checked on that it was -- that 


report was under review. Is that report now 


available? I heard you just refer to it. And 


could you also explain to me the -- what the 


Battelle re-- effort is and what the Ba-- 


Battelle report is or what Battelle is 


identifying? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: I don't -- I don't remember 


saying that there's a report that had been 


developed by ORAU or Battelle. I think that 


sites are being identified as we move through 


the process, that -- that we've determined that 


dose reconstructions aren't feasible, so -- 


 DR. MELIUS: The "you" I was referring to was 


NIOSH, and --


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Larry, you have an additional 

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comment on that? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, my comment's the same as 


Bomber's. We have no report from ORAU. There 


was purportedly a report being generated. The 


report never surfaced in a format that was 


approved. We are pursuing all available 


avenues on 83.14s as we're doing dose 


reconstructions, both through ORAU, our own 


OCAS health physicists as they work on dose 


reconstructions, and the Battelle contract. 


 The Battelle contract -- this is on our web 


site so you can see it if you go there, but -- 


was a contract for a one-year period to look at 


over 1,400 claims across what, 250-some sites, 


so there's a large number of claims but a small 


number per site. And these situations had 


existed in our -- our claim population as we 


worked on more -- sites that had more claims, 


like Los Alamos, Hanford, Savannah River, Y-12, 


those sites. As Battelle came to closure on 


the -- on the contract period, it had a one-


year contract period to perform its duties, we 


took a look at where things stood in September 


of this year, knowing that the contract was due 


to expire October 11th of this year. So about 

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a month before, we took stock of where things 


stood with Battelle. We found that about half 


the work had been performed for about half the 


money expended. In other words, we gave them a 


budget and they only expended half of that 


budget and they performed about half of our 


expectations in the scope of work, so we had a 


large amount of money left on the table. We 


had a lot of work left to be done. We -- we 


partitioned that work and provided specific 


expectations to Battelle -- you can see this in 


the contract mod that is on our web site -- and 


took away some of the sites from them, returned 


them either to our own health physicists or to 


the ORAU health physicist team. So the --


there's clear expectations on what Battelle is 


to do till the current contract period that 


they're working under expires in May of 2007. 


As they move forward we anticipate that a 


number of sites that Battelle's been working on 


will become 83.14s. Dow is one of the first 


ones that's coming out of that process, so we 


have seen from Battelle two generic Technical 


Basis Documents that speak to sites that were 


processing uranium in a consistent way across 

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sites, and another Technical Basis Document 


that -- my age, I'm just now -- I've lost my 


train of thought on what that was presenting to 


us, but at any rate, it was another general 


Technical Basis Document that treated a group 


of sites that processed radioactive material in 


the same manner. 


We're starting to see and have seen a number of 


dose reconstructions come from those two site 


Technical Basis Documents, but there's a lot of 


other sites that are not going to be handled or 


treated -- the claims won't be handled under 


those documents. 


 DR. MELIUS: Can I -- can I pursue that? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: Larry, don't sit down 'cause -- 


more questions. Then if I understand it 


correctly, we would identify sort of through 


the 83.14 process or -- or self-identifying 


through -- through NIOSH potential SECs by 


cases which -- where the dose reconstructions 


could not be done as -- as you're doing dose 


re-- actual dose reconstructions. That would 


be --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. 

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 DR. MELIUS: -- one methodology. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. 


 DR. MELIUS: The second methodology, which I 


think I just heard you describe which I -- I 


don't recall before, but -- I mean it does make 


sense, is as you're doing a Technical Basis 


Document that described a -- a site, part of a 


site or -- or a process that might be -- or a 


procedure that might be used across several 


different sites, that you would identify that ­

- that dose reconstructions could be not done 


for that --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Could be done for that. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: A Technical Basis Document that, 


on a general basis, speaks to what happened at 


a group of sites --


 DR. MELIUS: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- who were performing similar 


work. 


 DR. MELIUS: And -- and -- and would speak to 


whether or not dose reconstructions might be 


feasible at those. I mean it -- I guess could 


cut either way. Correct? I mean... 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, some -- these -- these 

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sites that Battelle was given either fit into 


one of these two categories that are going to 


be treated under these Technical Basis 


Documents, these two general Technical Basis 


Documents, or they're going to find their way 


into 83.14s. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay? An 83.14 starts in our 


rule on dose reconstruction under Section 


82.12, and you go to that section, you'll see 


we run into a situation on an individual dose 


reconstruction we can't reconstruct. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: And that starts the whole 83.14 


process. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. Then I'm going back to then 


what was the ORAU report that has never 


materialized, and I guess my question would be 


is that a report that -- that the methodology 


was flawed or was the performance of the 


contractor flawed in terms of identifying -- 


seems -- seems to me that what we were seeking 


there made sense. We were trying to find a -- 


a more general approach that might help to 


identify situations where dose reconstructions 

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would not be feasible to do with sufficient 


accuracy and that -- as part of that is -- and 


I'm -- we were never given the details of what 


ORAU was doing, or I don't recall what they 


were -- what -- what they were doing, but 


seemed to me it would -- might -- might have 


been a more efficient approach. Right now 


we're --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I don't --


 DR. MELIUS: -- wrestling with this situation 


where we're sort of identifying these case by 


case, and it's problematic -- or we have the 


case with General Atomics, it's -- it becomes, 


you know, at least potentially problematic when 


we try to generalize from a single case to 


other cases at that -- or other situations at 


that -- that same facility. So I'm just trying 


to better understand why the original attempt 


with ORAU apparently failed. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: It failed because the thinking 


that went into their methods -- this is over 


two years ago, you know, when we had a large 


number of claims in our backlog, places that we 


had not reconstructed dose for. 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

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 MR. ELLIOTT: Their methodological approach 


toward that was flawed from the start, in fact 


had in this purported proposed list in this -- 


this draft, situations where dose 


reconstructions had already been done, so on 


the -- on the face of it, it was flawed. We 


did not accept it as a work product and -- and 


we proceeded from that and divided out a number 


of sites that had not been given adequate 


attention or treatment up to that point in time 


and put those in place in front of Battelle and 


asked them to work on them while we were having 


ORAU concentrate their efforts on things that 


they had become competent and adept at. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I -- I'd just be careful 


about characterizing the fact that one can do 


dose reconstructions or have completed dose 


reconstructions as disqualifying an SEC because 


I think we've seen, you know, situations -- 


including today -- where you have completed 


dose reconstructions at a site and we're still 


saying it's an SEC. There are many --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well --


 DR. MELIUS: -- feasible ways that it is 


actually feasible to do and straightforward, 

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so... 


 MR. ELLIOTT: There's a lot that goes into 


this, as you know. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: And we're doing individual dose 


reconstructions. As we do them, we look at the 


site those originate from, and that has to be 


taken into consideration when you start talking 


about adding classes. 


 DR. WADE: All right, just to clarify -- excuse 


me -- so now the potential list of 83.14 sites 


is before the Board. I would expect that list 


would grow. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: The -- yeah. 


 DR. WADE: Possibly at each Board meeting you 


could bring that list -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: -- to the Board and give them a 


heads-up as to what's coming. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, I -- you know, the --


frankly, I get beat up whether I bring you a 


list or not, guys, you know? We talked about 


should we come forward with this list today and 


put LaVon on the mike or not with it, but -- 


and I said yes, let's put it on there, but it's 

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for information. No, we're not ready to defend 


the -- these particular sites on this list at 


this point in time. We're working on 


developing the professional judgment that goes 


to what can be reconstructed and what cannot be 


reconstructed. That leads into an evaluation 


report. Okay? There are more 83.14s on the 


horizon than you see on this list, but we're 


not -- you know, I'm not confident we should 


have added them to the list at this point in 


time. I'm confident that the ones you're 


seeing today, at the end of the trail we're 


going to say these are 83.14s; here's your 


evaluation report, here's your -- here's where 


we're at. 


 DR. WADE: But I think it serves the Board, as 


soon as you are confident, that you bring that 


information to the Board. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments or questions? 


 (No responses) 


Let -- let me ask a question, and I don't know, 


NIOSH folks, if you'll want to answer this or 


not, but is the Congressionally-mandated time 


clock -- is the Congressionally-mandated time 


clock on SEC petitions causing NIOSH problems? 

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And I see this many petitions -- potential 


petitions coming forward and the workload they 


might represent, and I don't -- don't answer it 


if you don't feel comfortable going on the 


record. It just seems to me that -- that this 


could really stretch the agency's resources to 


address vast numbers of these SECs in a timely 


fashion. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We're doing the best we can, and 


we're trying to bring forward -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's an answer. Probably you 


should stop right there -- no. No, but -- but 


actually, I -- I do worry about this some. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I mean I lose sleep at 


night every night, too, worrying about this and 


other things. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, because in part, in a -- it 


sort of gets to -- I -- I mean we faced it sort 


of group-wise, all of us, on the Mallinckrodt 


situation, and we've got to be timely. But in 


being timely, sometimes there's information you 


can't get to, like we've talked about here 


today -- well, what about this -- these 


inspections. Well, maybe it's more than can be 


done in the time available. That's one of the 

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problems that I see. I just --


 MR. ELLIOTT: We use that, but we also look at 


what we do get from the NRC. In many -- in 


some instances it's not -- it doesn't add to 


the value of what we've already got. But yes, 


we are doing the best that we can. We're 


trying to bring forward as many of these as 


fast as we can. I think you're getting a 


better insight into the process by us sharing 


with you where we're at with this list. You 


know, you probably haven't heard us talk much 


about a professional judgment document. This 


is something that gets created before the -- 


you know, the evaluation report. You've never 


seen one. We don't have to share one with you, 


but if you'd like to see one we can certainly 


get that. The most important thing I think is 


the evaluation report because that spells out ­

- you know, we hope specifically spells out 


what we cannot do and hopefully what we can do, 


so we're doing the best we can. 


 DR. WADE: You've identified the correct trade-


off, Paul, between timeliness and completeness. 


You know, we understand and respect the wisdom 


of Congress and we work within it, but there is 

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that trade-off. I mean as -- as the time 


periods are limited, then you can only do so 


much during those time periods. 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, whether or not Larry is -- 


and his staff is stretched or whatever, I think 


the Board is, certainly based on this list, and 


I think --


 DR. ZIEMER: Except we don't have the time 


limitation on us, but it does stretch. I mean 


the backlog starts to build up there, too, and 


there is -- if not a mandated time, there 


certainly is pressure from constituents for 


their petitions to be dealt with, so it -- it's 


a -- it's a shared problem, I think. 


 DR. WADE: Resources on all levels enter into 


this, be it time or money. And you know, we'll 


talk about this through the course of the 


meeting. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: This is the reason why I felt it 


best to have LaVon present the list to you so 


that you can see what's coming down the pike. 


You can already pinpoint now what you can 


foresee coming to you in January -- or in 


February, a number of these in February, and I 


would submit that perhaps at the May meeting 

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you're going to see even a larger number coming 


at you. That's my hope. That's our goal. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now don't try to scare us, Larry. 

 DR. MELIUS: Well --

 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda Munn. 

 DR. MELIUS: I have some further comments after 

-- go -- go ahead, Wanda. 


 MS. MUNN: He's already scared me, and I 


believe Jim has adequately characterized a 


major concern we need to all have, as Lew has 


referenced. This is not just a daunting task 


for NIOSH and ORAU. This is a daunting task 


for this Board, trying to maintain some 


semblance of continuity without closing out the 


processes that we have undertaken. Every --


every time we do something that asks for 


further extended effort from any of the 


agencies involved, we're also extending our own 


effort. And that's -- if we are not very 


careful, I think we'll all be overwhelmed by 


that. That's one of the things hopefully we 


can remain in the forefront of our thinking 


when we go forward with these things. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Jim, additional 


comment? 

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 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, couple of things I think we 


ought to think about and I think we need to 


take action on. One -- one is I notice that 


for some of these petitions and evaluation 


reports we're going to see, either at our next 


meeting or very shortly here, we -- I don't 


believe we've had -- I think -- I believe we 


have for several of them site profiles. I 


don't believe that we have workgroups that have 


really addressed the site pro-- excuse me, the 


site profile reviews. We have them and I don't 


know if we have workgroups set up for some of 


these, and that -- certainly having a active 


group that's looking at the site profile can 


help to facilitate the review, particularly 


where it involves a large -- significant 


portion of the site or large numbers of workers 


and so forth as in the Rocky Flats site and so 


forth. So I think that's something we need to 


consider in terms of our scheduling and so 


forth. 


The -- the second thing I think we need to -- 


to do -- consider is should we form another 


subcommittee that would address the 83.14 


petitions. Those are generally small, sort of 

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self-contained, that -- that I think having a 


workgroup that would review those -- prepare a 


recommendation that would then come back to the 


report (sic) if the recommendation -- you know, 


recommendation would include a letter that -- 


you know, to the Secretary that we would 


normally generate so that it might provide a 


little bit more efficiency in dealing with it 


where there are questions like we had questions 


on General Atomics that would allow those to be 


clarified before the -- the full Board 


considers it and so forth. And I think it 


would facilitate the process to address at 


least the 83.14, and my suspicion is that as 


this process moves along that Larry's going to 


-- staff is going to be identifying a 


significant number of those petitions and I -- 


those are the ones just for us to go through 


and spend the time ta-- at the Board meetings 


take a considerable portion of the Board 


meeting. If we had those 11 sites at a Board 


meeting, I mean there's the Board meeting right 


there. I mean the ones that are potentially 


identified now. And so I -- I think we need to 


think about how to process those in a more 

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efficient fashion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Good suggestion, and when we do 


our Board working session later this week we 


can talk about specific -- I think you're 


suggesting actually a workgroup -- 


 DR. MELIUS: A workgroup or a subcommittee -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- or a subcommittee. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- I didn't know whether it should 

be a standing group or --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, it actually could be 


standing if you're going to deal with all 


upcoming --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: I would suggest we --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- 83.14, but --


 DR. WADE: It would start with a workgroup and 


possibly morph into a subcommittee. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: There's paperwork that would have to 


be done, but I think it's an excellent 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: And I think you're also suggesting 


perhaps specific workgroups for particular 


petitions, particularly if they're com-- more 


complex, like perhaps the General Atomics is a 

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little more complex. Might be worth having a 


group --


 DR. MELIUS: A group look at that --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- look at that in advance of our 


meeting and then come prepared to make the 


recommendation. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, like Fernald, I don't 


believe we have a workgroup dealing with that. 


We've had a site profile review for a while. 


LANL, do we have a --


 MR. PRESLEY: I think we have (unintelligible) 


 DR. MELIUS: -- (unintelligible) LANL, either. 


 DR. ZIEMER: A number of these we have site 


profile workgroups, but not -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Not for LANL or Fernald, I don't 


believe. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Fernald we don't, I'm not -- 


 DR. MELIUS: LA-- LANL we don't, Ha-- Hanford 


we --


 DR. ZIEMER: I have the list with me somewhere, 


we'll -- but we'll -- we'll look at that in our 


working session -- good suggestion. 


Wanda, you have an additional comment? 


 MS. MUNN: The possibility of a subcommittee to 

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look at these less extensive potential SECs is 


one which requires a great deal of thought, I 


think. Having contemplated how one might 


expedite that for some little time, one of the 


issues that rises I think is how amenable the 


Board is to the possibility of accepting a 


subcommittee's recommendations without 


continuing to do the kind of vetting that we've 


done as a whole Board in the past. And I 


personally have been unable to get past that 


barrier. Perhaps that's an issue that we 


should discuss at great length here while we 


are meeting as a full Board, because the 


probability of accepting a subcommittee's 


recommendation without what we're accustomed to 


doing might be problematical for us. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But perhaps a subcommittee or a 


workgroup could, in advance, ask some of the 


kind of questions that have arisen here and 


make sure that we're at least at a level of 


comfort on what information is available for us 


to make a decision. That doesn't mean that the 


Board can't ask for additional things or have 


additional comments and so on, but it does give 


a -- an early look at some of these before we 

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are in full Board session and see who -- 


Robert, and then Jim. 


 MR. PRESLEY: The Board could go ahead and 


outline which SEC petitions that we did want to 


look at, or site profiles that we did want to 


look at, you know, and set a group up. But I 


agree with Wanda. You know, it's -- it's just 


like today, I thought we'd breeze through 


General Atomics until you get there and then 


you see all this stuff, so you really don't 


know which ones that are going to have the -- 


the glitches with and which ones we're not. 


Now we -- we -- I think we could come up with a 


list of the bigger sites that we'd probably 


want to -- to do that with. I think we ought 


to address that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I've got a little contrary 


view based on our own -- actually -- at least 


my observations of the Board. I mean I -- if 


you look at all the activity that's done in a 


workgroup on the dose reconstruction reviews, 


on some of the other SEC and site profile 


reviews, if you look at all the time that's put 


into that, think of if that were -- all had to 

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be replicated in the Board meeting, and we 


don't do that. And I think we do accept what's 


-- a large amount of the work that comes in 


from -- from our workgroups and it tends to 


then focus us on what are the more important 


aspects that really need to be discussed and 


evaluated as a full Board, and I see no reason 


why we couldn't, you know, evolve the same way 


with the SEC -- particularly the 83.14s where, 


you know, by definition we know what the NIOSH 


recommendation's going to be so it's not like, 


you know, we have to guess at that. And then 


the question is just, you know, the issue of 


the identifica-- the identification of any 


issues and -- and, you know, is the 


justification for that -- that adequate and 


preparing a communication with it and I -- I 


don't think it needs to be a, you know, 


perfunctory review. I think it -- but it 


certainly is something that, you know, rel-- 


relatively straightforward and I -- I think 


would be much more -- a fairly -- should be a 


fairly efficient process. 


 DR. ZIEMER: The other thing is that we do have 


a -- one of our tasks for our contractor is 

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site prof-- or is SEC petition support. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And on those, we -- we would have 


workgroups and, for example, we do have a -- a 


workgroup on the Chapman Valve SEC, we have a 


workgroup on Rocky Flats, actually, which is 


site profile and SEC, but -- so we have that -- 


yeah, on both -- we have that -- that model 


already --


 DR. MELIUS: Ye-- yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- for certain ones and it would 


be a matter of extending the model. 


 DR. MELIUS: If we were doing Rocky Flats work 


as a full Board, I mean we wouldn't get to 


anything else for another two years, the way 


the meetings are going. 


 MS. MUNN: Jim clearly sees this process as 


moving more smoothly than I. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: And as always, the truth is probably 


somewhere between, so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other comments? Thank you, 


that's -- now when we have our working session 


later in the week, why we can put some -- some 


feet on these suggestions. 

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 DR. WADE: Excellent suggestion. 


 DR. MELIUS: And could I -- I would just like 


to thank Larry for presenting this. I didn't 


mean to try to kill the messenger. I was just 


trying to find out what happened to that ORAU 


report we hadn't heard about for a while. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, I, too, applaud NIOSH's 


efforts for coming forward, so thank you. 


SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT
 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, CHAIR


 DR. ZIEMER: Now we have a subcommittee that 


met earlier today and Mark Griffon -- and this 


is now officially the Subcommittee on Dose 


Reconstructions, has been rechartered, and that 


group met this morning and Mark, you have a 


report and recommendation? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Have a very brief report. I 


don't want to duplicate the work we did in the 


subcommittee, so this'll be very brief. 


 DR. MELIUS: I have lots of questions, so... 


 MR. GRIFFON: This morning we -- we worked on ­

- primarily on this seventh set of cases and 


selection of a seventh set of cases and -- and 


what we made a preliminary decision, at least 


amongst the subcommittee, was to -- we wanted 

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to sample additional cases and -- and pull -- 


pull cases, but we wanted to create some sort 


of screening device that NIOSH can pull 


additional information for us about these cases 


and -- and it's -- this is information that's 


not readily available in the database, 


parameters that you can't pull off the -- about 


the cases without actually opening up the full 


case and looking at the case and -- but 


nonetheless we feel like they're critical and ­

- in -- in assuring that we get a good cross-


section of the cases that we're looking to 


review in our overall audit. If you remember, 


early on we created this matrix of what we 


wanted to see at the end of the -- at the end 


of the audit, sort of what we wanted to cover. 


We wanted to cover various time periods, 


various begin work periods, various types of 


cancers, various sites at different levels 


depending on the total number of claims to some 


extent. So we had all these parameters we're ­

- we're filling in all these boxes as we track 


the cases through. 


Now we're coming to a point where we're -- we 


feel like we're -- we're finding so many of the 

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similar cases. If we pull them out randomly, 


based on our previous selection criteria, we're 


getting cases that basically -- well, OTIB-4 or 


OTIB-8 and 10, they rely on the exact same 


methodology that we've already reviewed and 


discussed at length on the subcommittees and in 


the previous write-ups, the first three sets of 


cases that we -- we've written reports on. So 


we thought we'd be better -- it would better 


serve this audit process if we could find -- 


first select -- and that's why we've come with 


32 cases that we selected. The notion is out 


of the 32, after NIOSH -- if we approve these 


32 as a full Board, NIOSH will take the 32 


back, look through each of the 32 cases and 


identify parameters that we came up with. 


The ones we came up with which we thought would 


help steer -- or help allow us to make a better 


decision on whether we want to review the case 


or not are the following: 


Whether the case has neutron dosimetry pre- or 


post-1972, and that's an important cut-- cutoff 


to -- related to the type of -- of dosimeter 


used for neutron detection. 


The work area, and this one's going to be -- as 

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we discussed on the subcommittee, this criteria 


-- you know, we -- we -- we could end up with a 


field that has a lot of information in it. It 


could be that a person was in one work area the 


whole time. It could be a multitude of work 


areas listed in this field, so we're not sure 


exactly what we're going to get back. This is 


kind of a trial approach. We think it's an 


important factor in terms of -- for instance, 


especially at some of the larger sites, we want 


to make sure we -- we -- we think we're getting 


a lot of -- of Savannah River Sites, for 


instance, but if they're all from one 


particular area at Savannah River, we may be 


missing -- you know, we're not getting a good 


cross-section of the types of cases that might 


exist at Savannah River. So we want to -- we 


want to try to get -- to -- to crack that nut. 


One attempt is to try to have NIOSH include the 


work area and let us see if we can better 


determine is this case worth looking at or have 


we looked at several of these types already, 


that sort of thing. 


Third factor is job title, which again, they 


may have multiple job titles, but they say this 

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one is probably a little easier than work area. 


Fourth is the external dose methodology and the 


fifth is the internal dose methodology. And 


those last two, a lot of times they're going to 


include -- you know, for external they used 


TIB-whatever, a certain Technical Information 


Bulletin was used to establish the dose. It 


may be a combination of things. It may be that 


they used personal dosimetry and coworker 


model, parentheses, TIB-whatever. But we'll 


have at least a sense of -- and this -- this 


will help us at least in those cases where we ­

- we've seen TIB-4, which is a overarching 


methodology, used in a lot of cases. This will 


at least show us -- you know, sometimes in the 


matrix that we get for our initial selection, 


when it says full internal and external, it -- 


not that it's misleading, but it -- but it 


might -- some of that could include a site-wide 


model that's applied to all workers. And you 


know, you -- if you -- if you weren't familiar 


with the details of the process, you might 


think well, full internal/external, they must 


have all the bioassay for this individual and 


do a -- you know, a bioassay calculation 

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specific to that individual. That may not be 


the case for all -- for all those, so we want 


to get a -- an impression of what type of 


external method and internal method are being 


used. 


Then once we get that back for the 32 cases, 


the notion is to -- and I think that Stu said 


that I think by January, maybe it was possible 


that we might get a product by the January 


phone call of the Board --


 MR. HINNEFELD: I specifically didn't promise, 


but --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. No, I know, you didn't 


promise. You didn't prom-- anyway, the idea 


would be to then -- hopefully out of 32 we can 


get down to 20 that will be -- that we're still 


interested -- interested in at the end of the 


day. 


So NIOSH would bring that back to the 


subcommittee, we'd go through that detailed 


information and then come back with a proposal 


for 20 as the seventh set. So it's a sort of 


two-step process here, but I think we're going 


to get to -- more useful type of reviews that 


we're -- that -- that the whole Board will 

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benefit from, so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, questions for Mark? 


 (No responses) 


So we will see the list then -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- on --


 DR. WADE: You want me to read the list? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I was going to say, we 


could -- we could go through the numbers that 


were selected -- does everybody have the-- 


these? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Do we need to take action on this 


list or are you -- are you waiting till they 


look at the parameters? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I was going to -- well, I 


was going to say --


 DR. ZIEMER: You'd like them to take action? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I'd like them to take 


action on -- on us going forward with these 


parameters and --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: We can discuss the parameters 


first if you want and then... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's open the floor for 


discussion, and Lew, if you'll go through the 

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list and I'm going to check on... 


 DR. MELIUS: Just in terms of the parameters -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead, Jim. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- I -- I would support those. I 

think they sound reasonable. I think the 


issue's more likely to come up that if after 


the 32 go in and NIOSH comes back, I think 


there may be some judgments on how to -- how to 


weight different things in terms of balancing 


those that'll get reviewed this -- this round, 


but I -- I don't think I'd want to question any 


of them until the -- we saw what -- saw what 


comes back 'cause I -- I think that would be 


the -- the thing. I -- I -- you know, I'd 


agree, we ought to at least preliminarily 


approve the 32, so -- if only to inform some of 


us who weren't part of the subcommittee as to 


what -- what you selected, but -- yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: We fully admit that this is a 


sort of draft list of additional parameters, 


and I -- I'm not -- I'm interested in work 


area. I'm not totally confident that -- that 


once I see what's delivered, it's going to be 


very hel-- you know, so -- so it may be that, 


you know, if -- if we get 32 cases here and 15 

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of them have, you know, eight -- eight or nine 


buildings listed or whatever, it may not be 


helpful in us determining, so we'll have to -- 


but we -- we decided it might -- at least the 


subcommittee decided that it might be a 


worthwhile draft proposal. Let's look at these 


32, see how this setup works and we can always 


refine it as we go forward. 


 DR. WADE: Any other discussion? What I can do 


now is read you the 32 cases or refer you to 


them on your list. 


In your tab under "Dose Reconstruction" you'll 


find a series of papers. They're really broken 


into two parts. I believe that the first one 


is full internal and external, as it said at 


the top of the middle. What I'm going to do is 


walk you through and identify 15 of those cases 


that the subcommittee has identified. Okay? 


The first one -- I'm going to read the last 


three num-- well, the last three numbers is 


302, and then 306, 314, 322, 327. Next page, 


335, 337, 351, 354. On to page three, 375, 


393*. Page four, 455*. Page five, 480, 490. 


And page six, 509. Those are the first 15. 

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If you go to the next document in that 


sequence, up at the top you'll see random 


selections. And I'm going to read you 17 cases 


that have been identified there. The first on 


page one is 013. On page two, 017, 028. On 


page three, 054, 056 and 063. On page four, 


076, 079, 081 and 099. On page five, 102, 104, 


126. On page six, 132, 141, 154. On page 


seven, 166. And that should be 17 on that list 


for a grand total of 32. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, everyone have the -- the 


items? Now what we want to do is approve these 


for the screening process that Mark described, 


and from that -- Mark, how will -- how will we 


reach the next 20? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, the -- the -- that --


that's the question. The -- I think NIOSH is 


going to bring that back to the subcommittee -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: And then you'll (unintelligible). 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- and then we're going to look ­

- we're not sure exactly how these are going to 


be -- are going to fall out -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: So --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- so we're going to review them 


one by one and go through -- yeah. 

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138

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So this comes as a -- as a 


recommendation from the subcommittee. It 


constitutes a motion. It does not require a 


second. Any discussion? 


 (No responses) 


If not, we'll vote. All who favor sending 


these forward for the screening process, say 


aye? 


 (Affirmative responses) 


Any opposed, say no? 


 (No responses) 


Abstentions? 


 (No responses) 


Motion carries. Thank you very much. 


 DR. WADE: And with an eye towards the future, 


SC&A has indicated that if the Board -- the 


subcommittee and then the Board could identify 


the seventh set of 20 by the June -- excuse me, 


by the February Board meeting, that would allow 


them to maintain continuity. We have an eighth 


and a ninth set also to address this year. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Mark, if I could ask a question, 


and then -- Jim, go ahead. 


 DR. MELIUS: I have a question and I -- I may 


have missed this in all the paper that we get. 

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Are we keeping any sort of a tally that would 


allow us to -- sort of a running tally of what 


cases we've selected and -- going through the 


process by some sort of cross-tabulation by 


site and by --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, they have that. Stu --


 MR. GRIFFON: NIOSH is tracking that for us. 


 DR. MELIUS: I think it'd be useful for the 


other members of the Board to have -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: We have it --

 DR. MELIUS: -- that, also. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- by site, by cancer, by POC -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- by number of work years, the 

regular sort parameters. I think these 


screening ones are ones which don't come out in 


the normal sort, that they have to go into the 


cases to --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- so they're a little more 


difficult to --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but it would be useful for 


the other Board members to have that and just ­
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-


 DR. WADE: Stu, if we could ask that that be 


shared before the next Board meeting. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, which would be fine in terms 

of timing. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark, are you in a position to 

give us a quick update on the status of the 


matrix for cases 61 through 80, which would be 


the fourth set, which are still in process but 


are -- are getting toward closure. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah, a very quick update. 


We've -- we had a meeting on November -- was it 


in November? 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, it was November -- toward the 


end of November. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Anyway, we had a -- a DR -- 


yeah, the 16th or 17th, somewhere in there I 


think -- had a meeting of the subcommittee and 


we discussed the fourth set of cases and we 


started the resolution process, the finding 


resolution process. At that time NIOSH 


provided their responses to SC&A's finding in 


matrix form. We went through most of those and 


we -- we have at least a preliminary resolution 


and -- and in some cases -- actually there's -- 

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several of the -- of the -- I think it was two 


out of three of the best estimate cases NIOSH 


is actually redoing the dose reconstructions 


and they -- they were ones that were very close 


to the 50th percentile I think so there was -- 


so there's -- there's follow-up action such as 


that where -- where NIOSH is -- is actually 


redo-- or -- redoing a fairly extensive amount 


of work on -- but we did go through the whole 


first step of the resolution process. My sense 


is that I can update this matrix and probably ­

- I don't know how we've done this before, but 


I think we could probably be in a position to 


distribute it to the Board -- you know, an 


update on this -- and probably close to closure 


in February. I might be getting ahead of 


myself, Stu, but I -- I -- I think we might be 


in a position to close on this in February at 


the next Board meeting, so that's kind of a 


very brief status review on that. Am I -- am I 


accurate on that, John, or is Kathy or Hans on 


the -- on the line? 


 MS. BEHLING: This is Kathy Behling -- 


DR. MAURO: Yes, I believe we spent that day -- 


 MS. BEHLING: -- yes --

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DR. MAURO: -- it was a Friday, I remember -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Hold on, Ka--


 DR. ZIEMER: Kathy, are you on the phone? 


 MS. BEHLING: Yes, I am. 


 DR. WADE: Could you speak --


 MS. BEHLING: Can you hear me? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Did you hear Mark's comment? 


 MS. BEHLING: Yes, I did, and Mark is accurate 


with everything. The only thing that I would 


ask, and I assume that you implied this, is 


that when we continue on with the fourth set of 


the -- for the resolution process that we will 


have some response by NIOSH as to those open 


cases that we're asking them to review. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, so there -- there's 


definitely some actions that NIOSH is working 


on. At least two or three of the cases I know 


are -- are going to require a fair amount of 


work, so -- but I think -- I think we're still 


on course to probably close the fourth set out 


for the February meeting. That's -- that's my 


goal on this. And like I said, I think in the 


interim I've -- I've missed this homework 


assignment, but I -- I do have all the 


handwritten notes on the resolution from the 

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last meeting. I can update this matrix and 


circulate it so people are in the loop on -- on 


where we stand on the -- the review. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And then cases 81 through 100, 


which would be the fifth set, I believe that 


SC&A distributed that report within the past 


week. 


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And so you should have gotten 


that, and from that the matrix will be 


developed for that as well. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Yeah, and I think SC&A is 


well along -- might even have a draft matrix 


ready, but we'll -- that's in the pipeline, so 


-- yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Good. 


 MS. BEHLING: Yes, I have -- this is Kathy 


Behling again, and I have developed a draft 


matrix and I have forwarded that to the -- the 


Chair of the working group, to Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, okay. So we'll get -- 


we'll pull that into the next subcommittee 


meeting, too, as well. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thanks. Is there anything 


else for your subcommittee, Mark, that you need 

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to report on? Any questions for the 

subcommittee? 

(Pause) 

PUBLIC COMMENT 

We do have a public comment period scheduled 


shortly. We will take a break just before 


that, but I do want to ask -- I want to make 


sure that the individuals who signed up are 


here. Dan McKeel, I saw Dan earlier today -- 


yes, hi, Dan. And John Ramspott -- is John 


here -- thank you. And George Luber? Is it 


Uber or Luber? Luber, good, okay. 


UNIDENTIFIED: L-u-b-e-r. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: L-u. 


 DR. ZIEMER: L-u-b, Luber. And Larry Burgan? 


Okay. I want to ask the four of you -- our 


public comment period is scheduled for 5:00, 


but does anyone object if we start it at 4:30? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: It's okay? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) I'm going to 


withdraw (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Does the other three 

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speakers -- anyone object to going earlier? 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, then we will -- we will 


recess for 15 minutes and then have the public 


comment period at 4:30. 


 DR. WADE: If I might make a very quick 


announcement, you'll notice that the 


proceedings are being taped by the "Village 


Image News" and they are being most discreet in 


doing that, and just wanted to identify that 


that was ongoing. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, so we'll 


recess for 15 minutes. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 4:17 p.m. 


to 4:35 p.m.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: This is our public comment session 


for today, December 11th. Our first speaker 


will be Dan McKeel. Dr. McKeel has been before 


this Board on several other occasions. Welcome 


back, Dan. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Good afternoon to the Board, Dr. 


Ziemer. So as you all know, I'm a retired 


physician and -- and now am the lead petitioner 


for the Dow Madison site SEC 00079 now. I'm --


I also represent the Southern Illinois Nuclear 

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Workers or SINW. You should know, and we'll 


talk more about this tomorrow, that we're also 


vigorously advocating that NIOSH recommend an 


immediate Section 83.14 for General Steel 


Industries located in Granite City, Illinois, 


and my colleague John Ramspott will have more 


to say about the GSI site. 


What I want to address with you now are the 


timeliness issue again and SEC process issues 


as they apply primarily to the Dow site. I 


will also address the Battelle task order 16 


and the GSI SEC issues in more detail tomorrow. 


 My overarching general concerns are that after 


six years of EEOICPA, only two of 253 total 


claimants -- and that would include 226 cases, 


208 of which are unique; 80 have been referred 


to NIOSH at Dow -- have completed dose 


reconstructions, and only two have been paid. 


At General Steel Industries, only four of 744 


total claims, which represent 512 cases, 452 


unique individuals, and 192 cases referred to 


NIOSH, have completed dose reconstructions and 


only one has been paid. So -- so out of the 


total claims at both sites, only six people 


have dose reconstructions, and we think that 

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the four at the General Steel site actually may 


have worked for Granite City Steel and not 


truly at the GSI site. 


This rate is among the lowest in the entire 


program. Neither site has a completed site 


profile, any radiation dosimetry, a TBD or a 


TIB that have been completed that fully address 


the radiation source terms. Both have 


acknowledged long residual radioactivity 


contamination periods. The Dow site has never 


been remediated for beryllium, which was widely 


used there as an alloy constituent with 


magnesium, aluminum and thorium. 


So let's talk a little bit about timeliness and 


the Dow situation. As a background, we have 


supplied NIOSH with meeting PowerPoints, 


affidavit and outreach meeting video footage, 


and court reporter-generated verbatim 


transcripts of three meetings held with Dow 


Madison workers. We have supplied NIOSH with 


37 affidavits that are relevant to SEC 00079. 


We informed them that SINW has both Privacy Act 


and medical -- HIPAA-compliant medical releases 


that have been signed and notarized from all of 


the affiants. Yet to our chagrin, we recently 

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learned that this information had not been 


placed on the shared O drive to be viewed by 


the Board, SC&A or others with a need to know, 


particularly for the Dow SEC, or to see 


documentation that may also be crucial to 


resolving the Rocky Flats SEC that was 


discussed again earlier today. 


The same was true of all of the voluminous 


material that Mr. Ramspott has supplied to the 


OCAS office regarding General Steel Industries, 


an issue which John may want to address. 


I mention to the Board again my concern that 


SEC petitioners are not treated equitably 


because they have no direct access to 


information on the O drive, even with ample 


justification in the form of signed and 


notarized Privacy Act and HIPAA releases. I 


believe the Board and NIOSH should formulate a 


policy to address the unfair current policy of 


excluding petitioners with web access to the O 


drive unclassified documents. They should also 


formulate a formal policy and procedures for 


providing access to all for classified 


documents that relate to SEC petitions. 

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 Efforts to obtain crucial documents from DOE 


starting last February the 9th were obstructed 


until recently when Elizabeth White re-- 


stepped in. On Saturday, last Saturday, her 


office finally provided some of the Dow Atomic 


Energy Commission Rocky Flats documentation we 


needed to establish a direct link between the 


Madison site and the Rocky Flats AEC contract 


work related to metallurgic processing of 


thorium and perhaps beryllium. 


SINW was first notified of an 83.14 SEC for Dow 


by OCAS on September the 5th, 2006. Litmus 


case number one person had submitted the -- the 


candidate as a litmus case had submitted Parts 


B and D claims, D having now moved over to E, 


in August of 2001. His Part E claim was only 


recently denied. The Part B claim is still 


open. 


On September the 5th of 2006 I was told ORAU 


would in the next 30 days certify the litmus 


case and define the class. SINW or the litmus 


worker heard nothing further after 60 days, so 


I contacted OCAS and was informed that litmus 


case number one was not okay because he was 


employed after 1957/60 during the active 

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uranium work for Mallinckrodt in the SEC. 


Delay in defining a class and selecting another 


litmus case was explained because NIOSH 


believed the NRC, the Nuclear Regulatory 


Commission, might have relevant records that 


turned out -- and that turned out not to be the 


case. This raised a deja vu memories of 


suddenly-discovered new records that turned out 


not to be relevant, but significantly delayed 


the Mallinckrodt SEC deliberations. 


A new litmus case was assigned in November. 


The Dow petition was qualified as SEC 00079 on 


December the 4th, and I received the 


notification letter December the 7th. For some 


reason the SEC petition has not been posted on 


the OCAS web site, despite my request to do so, 


and I was told just yesterday that this was 


because it has not yet been in the Federal 


Register. 


A hectic exchange of e-mails between SINW, 


Senator Obama's office and NIOSH then ensued 


about various details of the Dow class 


definition and the availability of NIOSH's SEC 


evaluation report. Many of these concerns were 


expeditiously addressed by NIOSH through Larry 

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Elliott and Laurie Ishak Brier, whose efforts 


we very much appreciated. That part of the SEC 


process worked well; establishing the SEC 


counselor's position was a major step forward. 


 NIOSH then flip-flopped twice, telling us first 


the Dow SEC would be considered by the Board at 


this meeting in Naperville, then telling us in 


February at Denver. SINW protested and the 


presentation date was moved back to December. 


Then on December the 1st of this year Larry 


Elliott provided seven reasons why the petition 


would be presented to the Board in Denver in 


February, five months after we were originally 


informed about the SEC petition. 


We still do not know the proposed NIOSH SEC 


00079 class definition, whether or not it will 


be modified by the Department of Labor on 


review, or when we can expect to see a draft of 


the NIOSH evaluation report. We learned a few 


minutes ago that this might be sometime in 


January of 2007. 


We have been told by NIOSH that they would 


restrict the class to 1957 to '60, which is too 


limited, in our view. SINW believes the 


residual contamination period should be covered 

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because thorium -- and beryllium, for that 


matter -- are still on site, but the relevant 


one, the thorium, that processing continued 


into the 1990s with the commercial and the 


nuclear streams not being separately 


discernable. 


NIOSH claims they can reconstruct doses 


accurately to uranium exposure for 


Mallinckrodt, but are unable to reconstruct the 


doses due to thorium exposure. 


Then I want to say a few words about the human 


side of EEOICPA. The most troubling aspect of 


EEOICPA 2000 to me is the documentation from 


the Hostettler House Judiciary Subcommittee 


hearings of active behind-the-scene efforts by 


OMB and Labor to deny claimants benefits and to 


thwart the SEC process. Memos obtained under 


subpoena threat to HHS and Labor document this 


unequivocally, even though Shelby Hallmark, in 


his December the 5th Hostettler Subcommittee 


testimony, and OMB officials deny this is their 


intent. 


I am shocked and awed and angry as both a 


citizen and a taxpayer that agents of the 


executive branch would try to deliberately 

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counteract the clear intent of Congress in 


awarding nuclears their just due under the Act. 


The driving force for this concerted campaign 


appears to be to hold down costs. Mr. Hallmark 


is worried the total program cost could reach 


$7 billion if SECs were awarded to all the 


sites that merit one. 


To evaluate this concern, one would first have 


to see a detailed cost breakdown and weigh it 


against the misery and total cost of the 


present protracted process. These 


comprehensive cost figures have not been made 


publicly available, to my knowledge. My wife 


Louise has asked this Board for total EEOICPA 


costs at two regular meetings, but thus far the 


data has not been provided that she has asked 


for. And Louise may address the Board about 


this matter tomorrow. 


This slow pace of claims adjudications and 


payments, and the low ratio of payments to 


denials, are all testimony to the fact that 


efforts to thwart the benefits payment are 


indeed working. 


Over 2,000 years ago the Pharisees were judged 


harshly as hypocrites because they adhered too 

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narrowly to the letter of the then-current law. 


Now as then I respectfully suggest the entire 


EEOICPA program is missing the spirit in which 


President Clinton and Congress enacted EEOICPA 


in 2000. You will hear at this meeting from 


Jim Burgess, a GSI claimant and now a friend, 


who will exhort the Board to please decide to 


expedite the process for GSI workers before he 


dies. My plea and that of SINW is the same as 


that of Mr. Burgess. Thank you very much. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Dan. Board 


members, do any of you have any questions for 


Dan? 


 (No responses) 


I was checking, Dan, while you were talking, on 


the -- the Dow -- as far as I can tell, the Dow 


report is not on the web site yet. Is that 


correct, Larry? I don't -- I don't see it 


myself. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Right. I understand it is maybe 


on the way to the Federal Register, but the --


the -- and I -- I was told that it couldn't be 


posted there until that occurs, so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Is the Dow -- maybe I'll just ask 


NIOSH in general -- the Dow Chemical one that's 

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on our list for coming to the Board in January, 


is that Dow Madison that -- 


 DR. MCKEEL: That's Dow Madison, uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I just want to make sure we're 


talking about the same one. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Yes, sir. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Dan. John Ramspott. 


MR. RAMSPOTT: (Off microphone) I promise this 


is not a 400-page book. (Unintelligible) to 


get brevity, couple of Board members were kind 


enough to share -- oh, my gosh, we got enough 


(unintelligible), and I've heard that in other 


meetings so it wasn't anything new, but -- 


tried to put together something that -- a 


little bit of an outline (unintelligible). 


(On microphone) My name's John Ramspott and I 


have definitely spoken to the Board and some of 


the members in the audience before, and I 


certainly appreciate the time. Quite some time 


ago I actually made a commitment and a pledge 


that I would try to bring you information about 


General Steel Industries that has never been 


published, and I would do it honestly, 


accurately and try and do it scientifically to 


the best of my ability. The 400-page book that 

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156 

I gave to everyone, there was a section in 


there that actually said if there's anything 


contrary to what I put in the book, please let 


me know, and I haven't received any nasty 


letters or any phone calls or -- you know, hey, 


you -- you're off-track. 


What I'm going to tell you tonight actually 


reflects some of that because now I'm actually 


starting to see some responses to what we have 


to talk about. 


 That cover page actually says it all, and I 


know this is a uranium site, as well, but there 


was something more radioactive than the uranium 


there, way before the uranium ever came there. 


It was called a betatron. And the title of 


this is what did the betatron do to all the 


inspected materials? Its danger of radiation 


was not limited to just the AEC uranium metal. 


The device and activation must be factored in. 


I have asked government experts, NIOSH and 


others, to include it. I also -- kind of 


curious why it's never been pointed out in 


previous documents. I've looked a lot of spots 


about General Steel Industries; it's not there. 


Were the GSI workers harmed? We believe 

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157 

absolutely yes. Not just a few of them, many 


of them. We feel now we know the real betatron 


story and it's time to share this information, 


50-plus years too late. Please review the 


information as we proceed. 


The first page -- I actually tried to put a 


copy of the -- or I did put a copy of the -- I 


call it the law all the time, but it's the Act, 


and it clearly, on page eight of that Act, says 


particle accelerators are part of the program. 


Yet at one meeting in St. Louis I actually 


heard the Board kind of happy to see a new 


project other than just a radiation -- or a 


uranium project to look at. Well, okay, this 


one will really give you one. 


In a recent e-mail that I received -- and I 


want to definitely second the motion -- NIOSH 


adding someone to help claimants is 


unbelievable. It's fantastic. It works. 


Because we're actually seeing some real results 


now that haven't come out before. This e-mail 


that came back to us, OCAS determination at 


this point in time is that radiation exposure 


can be estimated from skyshine -- that was in 


my book -- and neutron activation/photofission 

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158 

of the uranium metal as well as direct 


irradiation of the metal itself. Well, I think 


that may kind of answer the question we had 


when I explained about the guys taking four 


shots of the uranium with a 24-million volt 


betatron, but there -- it's a good start. That 


fission, that's not limited to the uranium. 


And I think I heard earlier, and I've done my 


homework the best I could and I really salute 


Dr. Ziemer 'cause the target material in most 


accelerator projects is the size of a head of a 


pin. The castings of uranium at General Steel 


Industries -- the one they talk about was the 


ingot, 3,000 pounds. The dingot was bigger. 


And then they also mention slices, slabs, 


billets and rods. So the geography -- or the 


geometry of those different items, and the 


weight of them, bigger than the head of a pin 


and you -- you're ex-- you're totally correct, 


Doctor. I -- matter of fact, I've read the 


article that you published with another 


gentleman some time ago about the hazards with 


medical accelerators, and I really salute you 


because I don't think that'd be an easy 


position to take 'cause I'm sure the medical 

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159 

accelerator guys may have not been real happy 


with that, but you told the truth and it 


actually helped, I'm sure, make some people 


safer that are using the devices. I think that 


was the reason for the article. So -- tried to 


do a little -- and that's just the medical 


ones, so we tried -- you know, they are alike, 


even though they're (unintelligible), they're ­

- accelerator capabilities with electrons 


producing neutrons, there's no difference. 


The e-mail that -- the other e-mail we got from 


NIOSH -- and I really -- again, there is no 


site like General Steel Industries. It's 


exactly -- I think it says you asked in your 


previous e-mail if there were any sites similar 


to GSI. We are aware of no other similar 


sites. We had a lot of different things at 


that site. Now -- and I tried to verify that 


again and the ORAU TIB-04 Revision 3 dated 


2005, it gives a list of the sites where I 


assume this new TIB is being created to -- 


actually looks at these type of sites and 


according to this there are no other betatrons 


mentioned at any other site, so we think that 


by itself makes us a -- a little unique. And 

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if you create a TIB that addresses everybody 


else but it misses one, that's pretty 


interesting. 


Now as a result of our book and I think some of 


the comments -- and again, I want to thank 


NIOSH. They sent people in to actually do an 


outreach meeting with us. We had real workers 


there, tell the truth, it was both for Dow and 


GSI. Some articles came up when we started 


talking about accelerators, activation. One of 


the articles I had found as a result of a 


Privacy Act request with Dr. McKeel, who's now 


shown me how to put those together. It was 


actually about using a betatron. The title of 


the article -- and it's from the Defense 


Technical Information Center -- "Photon 


Activation of Materials Subdirected -- 


Subjected to Betatron Radiography," the author, 


Vincent Z. Kutemperer*. I'm going to read 


little bits of it, but I have sets and I have 


sets for anyone that wants them and I have 


every document that I now have that I could 


mail to you later. I won't burden you with 


them now, but -- it starts out (reading) 


Materials that have been radiographed using a 

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161 

25-million volt betatron are analyzed for gamma 


radiation using a high resolution nuclear 


spectroscopy system -- I believe is correct -- 


nuclear spectra of the radiograph material 


accumulated at different times after exposure 


show the presence of both short-lived and long-


lived isotopes in the activated material. 


General Steel had a 25-million volt betatron, 


and a 24-million volt betatron. 


The radioactivity of the metal after 


radiography is explained. Radioactive isotopes 


been in the news lately with the Soviet spy. 


They're pretty dangerous when you ingest them. 


And I'm not saying these guys ingested that 


exact material, but now that it's in the news, 


it got my attention a little bit more. 


The radioactivity of the material after 


radiography -- or I'm sorry, after radiography 


-- is explained on the basis of the creation of 


several isotopes which resulted from different 


photonuclear reactions that took place in the 


material during exposure. The analysis 


presented in this paper clearly shows that 


materials that have been radiographed using a 


25-million volt betatron become radioactive. 

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162 

The health hazards associated with the observed 


radioactivity are pointed out. Those betatrons 


were government owned. They were brought in 


for our purpose. I'm totally not sure what 


that purpose was. Was it to do the tanks or -- 


with their neighbor Mallinckrodt across the 


river, or was it -- or did it just serve a good 


dual purpose, because they started using it on 


the uranium. 


And back to our target size, most of their 


castings -- tank turrets are 17 tons. We start 


getting into some of the nuclear channel heads 


and we're talking about 130,000 pounds, each 


one of those getting 500 or 600 shots from a 


betatron, the ca-- the big nuclear castings, 


that's a lot of activation, and it does build ­

- it is accumulative. 


The abstract from the article that Dr. 


Kutemperer* wrote -- and I'm going to stop here 


just for a second, and that's why the outreach 


meeting was so beneficial 'cause not 


everybody's real sure about activation and we 


all said we'd do our homework. I took for 


granted the man was dead. Vincent would be 


here today but he's in Washington, D.C. He was 

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163 

a professor of nuclear engineering, physics, 


mathematics at Milwaukee School of Engineering. 


It's a pretty well-known school of engineering. 


People like James Lovell are on the board, ex-


astronaut. It's a hundred-year-old school and 


they're actively pursued for their quality of 


their students, but Vincent Kutemperer* would 


have been here today if he didn't have the 


previous commitment. And he told me, he said 


John, if I'd had a little more notice, but you 


can tell those people I will be available for 


conversation by phone, in person. He wrote 


these articles in 1974. When I sent him the 


book, all I heard was -- and I thought now I 


got a legal problem -- John, why'd you write a 


book about my articles? I wrote the book last 


year. He said this is unbelievable. This is 


exactly what I forecasted in my articles. I 


actually applied for a grant and I was told I 


had it, and it was from NIOSH, and the money 


never came. I tried to warn people 30 years 


ago. I'll do anything I can to help your 


workers, help that Board understand the issue. 


Feel free to give my name and phone number out 


-- why, I'll do that conservatively, but he's 

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definitely willing to help. 


Next page of course is a -- a copy of the 


article, which I did find on the Internet 


through the technical documents that were 


available. Like I said, I have full copies for 


you guys. The conclusion is pretty much by 


itself. It's saying they really need to figure 


out some safe handling procedures from -- for 


material that's been X-rayed by a betatron, and 


that obviously includes the uranium. 


Well, looks like it was a little late, but 


about 30 years later Los Alamos wrote the same 


thing in the accelerator safety self guide, 


which was in my book. One of the first topics, 


unit three activation, said it happens with 10 


million volts or more. It also mentioned 


skyshine, which was in our e-mail. And I think 


this part's really important. The effects of 


shielding and skyshine are difficult to 


calculate, so it is usual to make an actual 


measurement of the dose rates under routine 


conditions outside of the shielding. And I 


don't know -- maybe I'm reading that wrong, but 


I think it's just about as powerful outside as 


it is inside if it goes over that little 

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165 

shielding wall. And the owner of the property, 


General Steel, they let us go on the site a 


month ago, with cameras, with video. They 


didn't do anything wrong. They're trying to 


help the workers. That shielded roof, daylight 


was coming through it. There is no shielded 


roof. Those walls, we had a chance to measure 


them. Those walls are about 24 feet tall. 


That stuff went over the top of that like it 


wasn't even there. The guys were walking 


outside or in the plant right next door I would 


think were affected by it. 


And the next page, Professor Kutemperer -- 


actually a picture, a young dapper guy here and 


his boss. The two of them have written 


articles together at the Milwaukee School of 


Engineering. Well, for one of the 


commencements in 1970 they brought George H. 


Tenney* to campus, and he's from Los Alamos. 


I'm sure Los Alamos was recruiting these kind 


of guys. And from my past research I believe 


Los Alamos has a twin to this betatron. 
I 


might be wrong, but I know they had a betatron 


from Allis Chalmers. 


And I wanted to put proof in here 'cause I told 

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you I'd be as straight and honest as I could. 


The next page is a picture of the betatron at 


GSI and a betatron at Missouri School of 


Engineering. And you can look from the 


pictures, they're twins. They use the same 


machine, same platinum target in the machine, 


everything's the same. The only good thing 


they had, though, theirs was donated by Allis 


Chalmers. And that guy on the casting that's 


putting up film, that's a man you'll hear from 


tomorrow. He's here, George Luber. The other 


gentleman that's in the picture is going to try 


and get here. He's ill, but he'll do what he 


can. 


I'm going to skip ahead a little bit if I 


could, showing that it was donated by Allis 


Chalmers, so we're talking apples for apples. 


These are the same machines. 


Then there's a recent news article. Vincent 


apparently did talk to the press at that 


outreach meeting. It was reported from Channel 


4 news in St. Louis and his sister company 


apparently talked to Vincent, and this guy went 


on public record. I mean it's nothing -- he's 


not hiding it. He's just sorry his words 

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didn't get out to the public sooner, and he 


knows he was too late to help the GSI guys, but 


he's worried about today. Then I got up a 


little closer just to show apples for apples 


again, same machine. 


We can skip ahead a little bit, now we got the 


uranium ingot. I wasn't making a -- I didn't 


know we were going to talk about size of 


targets tonight, but that's 3,000 pounds there. 


And I thought it was kind of interesting. It 


definitely confirms -- they used words like 


"believed to have been used," I don't -- that's 


too maybe-ish, to me. You know, betatron X-ray 


apparatus. Why don't you call it a particle 


accelerator; that's what it is, probably 


brought over by rail -- well, they came by rail 


and truck is what we were told, but the 


handling of such operation's a pretty dangerous 


thing, especially after you activate it. 


I'll wrap this up a little bit here. There's 


one real interesting piece, though, and I -- I 


like a little excitement. There's a picture of 


an X-ray cassette 'cause I did read an article 


about medical accelerators and manufacturers 


are very careful with the materials now that 

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they use around accelerators because when you 


activate stainless steel, and that's what this 


X-ray cassette is -- I have it in my car; it's 


in a plastic bag. I've had it checked for 


radioactivity by the fire department. They say 


it's okay now, but that stainless steel when it 


was activated, according to Los Alamos, if it 


contains nickel -- which most stainless steel 


does -- it turn that cassette into cobalt-60, 


and these guys handle them all day long. 


That's Los Alamos saying that, not me, and 


that's Vincent Kutemperer saying that. And 


I'll bet there's 40 other studies that say the 


same thing. So when we start talking about 


sources and trying to limit maybe GSI to -- oh, 


there was uranium, it wasn't just uranium. 


There was a leaky betatron that leaked out 


radiation. There was air dust and particles 


that got activated. There's uranium itself 


that was pretty bad by itself and then it got 


activated. And then can't take a picture of 


that ingot unless you have an X-ray cassette, 


that cassette became cobalt. There's more 


cobalt there I think than the law would allow, 


but they apparently didn't know it. But that's 

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not the guys' fault. They shouldn't be 


penalized for that. 


 And unit three Los Alamos, this was a killer. 


This hurts every time I read it. Grinding, 


burning, machining and welding -- not supposed 


to do that and that's all those guys did. They 


ingested it. They ate it like popcorn every 


day. 


So again, just to prove sources and -- GSI 


magazine, it actually shows a betatron. It 


sees beyond the surface, through the very heart 


of the casting, exploring the Internet -- or 


exploring the internal metal structure. They 


knew back then what it was doing. That's the 


sad part. 


 Well, that pretty much wraps it up. The last 


page in there has the fact there were 30 


different alloys used over there minimally. 


And when you activate something, you make it 


something else. And when you pop it again 


'cause you're checking it to see if you got it 


fixed, now you're activating the activated 


material, I don't know what it becomes. 


And in closing, just thank everybody for your 


time. I tried to do my homework, get accurate. 

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You folks are more educated in this than I am, 


so I hope, you know, it gives you some reason 


to help these guys get their -- some 


satisfaction. That outreach meeting, too, I'm 


going to go on record, that gave some of these 


guys some closure that somebody was listening. 


You know, and the way it was handled, they came 


professionally. I thank everybody that was 


there. It was first class. We tried to show 


our respect by having it videotaped. You know, 


there are definitely DVDs of the entire 


meeting. The people that did it, the court 


reporter, donated their time to help the 


workers. Everybody's trying to help these 


guys. I hope you folks will, too. 


 Any questions, if I made any mistakes or -- 


like I say, I have copies of all of Vincent's 


works. You know, besides his two articles, he 


did a book with 75 pages in it. I have a copy 


of the grant request to NIOSH for the money. 


It explains in detail exactly what it was. It 


was 1974. I never met the man before in my 


life, but I am going to go meet him in February 


'cause I want to say hello and thank you and, 


you know, ask him why he wrote his article 

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about my book. 


Thank you all. Appreciate your time. Any 


questions? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, John. 


MR. RAMSPOTT: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Questions? 


 (No responses) 


Very good. Okay, let's go on to Larry Burgan, 


and Larry I believe is with Dow, or was with 


Dow. 


 MR. BURGAN: My name's Larry Burgan, B-u-r-g-an. I was employed at the Spectrulite 


Accelerating factory, which was the old Dow. 


was employed there for 14 years. The first 


year I was in casting where they directly dealt 


with beryllium and thorium, and for the second 


year I was also in the -- in the rolling mill 


where they also rolled the thorium plates and 


sanded them and cut them. But the majority of 


my time, 12 years, was spent directly on the 


extrusion press, one press only and 


exclusively, and it was the same press that was 


used in the '60s and '50s to extrude the 


uranium. 


And my cases -- I was -- been both chronic and 


I 
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acute dosage. And to explain it, the chronic 


part would be the uranium dust that rained down 


on top of my head for those 12 years that I sat 


there. Now as you see from the Army Corps of 


Engineers, there was a red dot in the middle of 


the factory. That is directly over my desk. 


Now they didn't clean the dust out from the 


whole factory, from the whole building, just 


over my desk. And this really alarmed me, but 


they kept saying oh, it can't hurt you. It's 


just the government trying to waste money. So 


they -- I dismissed it 'cause I had no health 


problems at the time. 


Then when I did develop health problems, six 


months later they got rid of me and all the 


other employees. They gave a contract that 


absolutely nobody would sign and in -- the 


arti-- it was just to get rid of us, out of 


sight and out of mind. My health problems 


increased. I was bedridden for months, had to 


learn to walk again. And the chronic part of 


this is uranium. I never knew about was up 


there, was never told about it by anyone. And 


the government knew it was up there in '89. 


They came back in '92, again in '96 and again 

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in '89, but he never informed us. 


Now the acute part of my dosage was the 


thorium-232. Now even though they ran thorium230 in the pot room, melted it, alloyed it, 


then rolled it in the rolling mill, thorium-232 


popped up was completely different alloy. How 


did it get there? It's -- they never ran it 


before. And looking through the records and 


talking to employees, we ran it in secret. 


They didn't tell us. Martin Marietta brought 


it in. 


And here's the time line. In 1986 this 


company, Spectrulite, got a license to produce 


thorium. In 1987 Martin Marietta came in and 


ran it for one day, six ingots. Both those 


helpers died four years later of brain tumors. 


The operator's still alive, but he didn't 


handle the material; he just pushed the 


buttons. Then the government came in in '89, 


two years later, and said that uranium-238 and 


thorium-232 was in contents exceeding 


guidelines. Then we ran six billets, but it 


was already exceeding the guidelines, according 


to the Department of Energy. So then -- but 


none of this was known to us. So then they 

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came in and they leased the equipment again for 


a week, Martin Marietta, and I ran it for five 


days straight, these special alloys what they 


told us. We kept asking what it was, and that 


was the only response we got, special alloy. 


We wasn't given no safety precautions, no 


warnings, not even a choice. We -- they 


brought us pizza for lunch, so we was eating 


pizza with one hand and actually holding the 


bare metal with our other hands, and this was 


how we was handling it. They came back a month 


later and leased it for three more days and 


processed. We ran it again for three more 


days, six or seven billets each day. 


 Now the government came in a year later and 


took another readings, and again they said 


concentrations were exceeding guidelines -- 


thorium-232 and uranium. And none of this came 


to light until recently. 


I became sick. Like I said, I was bedridden, 


and when I started getting my health, I started 


looking around on the computer to see what 


causes my health could be, and this is where I 


started to find information, talking to people. 


I found Dr. McKeel, who's been a great source 

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of information and help. And every (sic) since 


then my health has never gotten better. I'm on 


permanent disability. 


I've been a steelworker for over 20 years, six 


years at one factor and 14 at this one, and 


these last four years not working has been very 


difficult on me, my family and my children. 


And to get to the health issues, I have what's 


called psoriatic arthritis where -- and 


arthritis covers my whole body. I'm covered in 


a complete rash throughout my whole body. I've 


never been sick in my life. The very first IV 


I've ever gotten in my arm was when I was being 


tested for radiation by Dr. Laurence Fortes in 


Iowa. That's how healthy I used to been. I 


was able to kick over my head. I was such a 


health person, and it just bottomed out. 


A lot of my coworkers on this same machinery, 


the same thing. One of them, 34 years old, has 


to hook himself up twice a day to an IV because 


his immune system bottomed out. 


The first meeting we had was gentlemen in their 


80s or 70s and 60s talking about the radiation, 


uranium and thorium dust back in the old days. 


Well, I got together a second study group of 

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everybody in their 30s and 40s and 50s who also 


handled radioactive material, this thorium, 


beryllium, and they also had to tell their 


stories of how their health is affected and 


their health problems and what's happened to 


their lives. 


The employee who worked with me that day we ran 


the five billets -- the first two employees 


died of brain tumors about four years apart. 


Me and the coworker I worked with, we both have 


health problems. His wife has the exact same 


symptoms I have, almost to the letter -- 


rashes, arthritis, illness. His -- my wife has 


almost the exact same illnesses he has, all the 


way to the cyst on his liver and kidneys. He 


had to have his gallbladder removed, but no 


gallstones. My wife had to have hers removed; 


no gallstones. She has lung problems, my wife 


does; he has lung problems. And it just 


varies. It just keeps going on. I could go 


all day. 


I've been to several funerals in the last 


several months, and it just keeps growing. And 


our financial problems -- because none of us 


can work. My wife's health has deteriorated. 

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She was fired from her church because she 


couldn't continue her duties. She was a Sunday 


School teacher for 12 years and had to give 


that up to care for me when I became bedridden. 


And all this is all because of this radiation 


that we was never told about, not once, never, 


and we still -- you know, if it wasn't for us 


digging this information up and talking to 


coworkers and finding out their health 


problems, none of this may have even came to 


light, and that's probably what they wanted 


when they put us out on strike and got rid of 


everybody. They was hoping everybody would go 


their separate ways and never talk, and none of 


this would ever come to light. 


As it is now, I have to stand in line at food 


pantries for free food every month. I've been 


doing this for over a year and a half 'cause we 


have no money for food. We have to live just 


on my Social Security, which is about $1,000 a 


month. I have no car. We have to decide 


between medicines and utilities every other 


month, and I was -- never want in this 


position. I worked for a living -- to live, 


not to die. And these people took that choice 

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away from us. 


 And this machine, this press than ran all this 


radioactive material back in the '60s, back in 


the '50s, all this hot uranium and then again 


in the '90s and the '80s, this thorium, this 


piece of machinery, just one piece of 


equipment, would be somewhere safe, placed away 


from the public. Right? Wrong. I found it 


abandoned 50 feet past the county line, and it 


had no identification whatsoever. I mean it 


wasn't even on a trailer 'cause trailers have 


serial numbers. It was home-made wheels and it 


was abandoned. 


Now the first red flag was before we went out 


on strike they spent over $100,000 to rebuild 


it, yet they cut it up in scrap. The other 


press was sold for a million dollars at the far 


end of the factory where it wasn't radioactive, 


but this one was cut up into scrap. The paint 


was $29 a gallon after it was rebuilt. Why 


does paint cost $29 a gallon? It's lead-based 


to cover up the alpha particles and the 


beta/gamma rays from uranium. 


So I was both slow cooked and flash fried, and 


I got both of the bad ends of both of the 

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deals. And not only me, but my coworkers. And 


there is nobody to help us except you people. 


And I'm not asking, I'm begging you people, 


save our lives. We need our medicines that we 


can't afford. We cannot work. We can't get 


help, so I'm begging you people, please help 


us. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Larry, for 


sharing that with us. 


Then Mr. Reavis? Yes, will be next. 


 MR. REAVIS: I wasn't figuring on getting up 


here today, but after listening to the Board, 


to NIOSH representatives, I've come to some 


conclusions. One of the things I was going to 


mention is the human aspect. The gentleman 


that just spoke, you could not be more eloquent 


about what he said. He said it perfectly. 


I feel that when Congress mandated to EEOICPA, 


they had good intentions. Those intentions 


were to correct a wrong and turn it into a 


right. Somehow in the last six or seven years 


it's been turned the other way. Now we're 


taking things and making them worse. It feels 


like to me that this Board, in all due respect 


-- and NIOSH, has walked into a swamp and got 

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lost. They've forgot what it's all about. By 


your own admission here, right or wrong, I hear 


you can or cannot tell whether dose 


reconstruction works. You think it does. You 


assume it does. You also have said doing the 


best you can, and I realize that is what you're 


trying to do, the best you can. But the best 


you can is not good enough after six or seven 


years. I've watched people die. My father-inlaw's gone, mother-in-law's gone. Two days ago 


my wife just received a paper that her claim 


was denied. My father-in-law had a rare form 


of lung cancer. He had skin cancer, and I can 


speak for my wife, it's long since past being 


about money. Money has nothing to do with it. 


It's right versus wrong, and what's been going 


on is wrong. And I feel that all of this could 


have been avoided, the swamp that you guys I do 


believe are in -- you wouldn't have to be there 


if in fact what I heard at the first meeting 


that I attended back in 2001, that you do not 


have to prove whether your cancer was caused at 


your -- at your building or at your job site. 


All you had to do was prove that you were 


there. Those claims should have -- have been 

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paid five, six years ago. We're spending lots 


of money. I heard lots of money on the table, 


half the work done, half the money left over. 


If all of those dollars would have been spent 


on people like the gentleman that just spoke, 


we'd be done with this. I would like to just 


pray that somebody gets some guidance to get 


this resolved in an honorable way. So far I 


don't see it being honorable. Thank you very 


much. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. We will have 


another public comment period tomorrow. 


(Pause) 


The public comment period tomorrow is in the 


evening, 7:30 to 8:30. I do want to -- Mark 


just indicated there may have been some others 


have joined us after we started this public 


comment session. Are there any others that are 


here that did not get a chance to sign up but 


do wish to make public comment? 


Yes, ma'am, please. Just --


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) sign up? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Just come up to the mike -- just ­

- you want to -- you want to speak now, you can 

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just come to the mike and identify yourself and 


go ahead. 


MS. GATES: I'm Mary Lou Gates. My father 


worked at Blockson Chemical during the time of 


the issue, from '51 till '62, and we've been 


going on now for what, five or six years. And 


he was number 100 and we were just -- he died 


from lung cancer in 2002 and we were just 


simply told that, you know, this was going to 


happen. I thought it was just wonderful. 


Jerry Weller* had called my dad when my dad was 


real sick in 2000 -- in 2000 Jerry Weller 


himself called my father and asked him -- 


because my father had a security clearance for 


Building 55 -- and asked my dad if he would be 


willing to help give some names of people that 


were working with him, and Dad was so sick he 


says no, I just can't do it. They've got the 


information they need. That's all they need. 


And that's -- we just thought oh, well, gee, we 


didn't even know anything about this claim or 


what was happening with this NIOSH until we 


started getting all the information. So we 


filed the claim and we were just simply told 


that 'cause Dad was there, he was the 

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maintenance foreman there in that area and did 


all that work, we just were assured that 


everything was going to be, you know, fine. He 


was going to get his money. He was -- he felt 


so good when he passed away that Mom would be 


taken care of with these problems. And then 


two days ago we got the notice saying that he 


was denied 'cause the dose reconstruction was ­

- I don't know, 47.9 percent and he had to have 


50 percent. So this is what -- we were a 


little confused, don't know what we can do, 


what we can do, so we got the letter saying to 


sign, but the only thing in the letter says is 


that sign it if you're going to agree with 


this. So we're just kind of totally confused. 


What do we do? We were told about a month ago 


that -- what his dose construction was and that 


this in turn was not a final denial, that it 


would go to Washington for the final decision. 


So they said just wait and see what Washington 


does. If they agree with our dose 


reconstruction, then of course he'd be denied, 


but that doesn't mean he'll be denied; that's 


just our opinion. So we just again sat back 


until my mom then finally got the letter two 

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days ago saying that it was denied. But yet it 


wasn't from Washington, so we were a little 


confused over what do we -- what do we do? 


This thing, if you say it's signed, says you 


agree on their decision. It just seems that it 


just isn't right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: There are some NIOSH staff people 


here that can help you with that. Larry will 


get you to the right person. I suspect the 


thing that you're talking about signing is the 


OCAS -- is it the OCAS-1 form -- which simply 


says that you don't have any additional 


information to enter into the record. I don't 


think it says you necessarily agree with it. 


MS. GATES: I mean I don't think that any -- I 


mean I have a lot of information, but -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, but they -- they will -- 


MS. GATES: -- of course I don't think anything 


I say --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- they will help you with the -- 


MS. GATES: -- is going to help with the -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- with the details on the -- 


MS. GATES: -- dose reconstruction or anything. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I'll talk to her, but this is a 


DOL letter, so --

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 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, a Department of Labor letter. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- this is not the OCAS-1. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: This is a DOL letter providing 


them a decision and asking them to accept or 


deny going to the appeal process. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But --


 MR. ELLIOTT: And I know you've already talked 


with a PHA, a public health advisor, here. You 


made an appointment in the other room? 


MS. GATES: No, we haven't done anything. We 


just --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Oh, you haven't done anything? 


I'll --


MS. GATES: -- came in late. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- talk to her. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We'll make sure you talk to 


the right person --


MS. GATES: Well, thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- to follow up on this. 


MS. GATES: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But it doesn't mean -- I mean we ­

- we don't know what the outcome will be, but 


at least --


MS. GATES: No --

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 DR. ZIEMER: -- we can follow up on it for you. 


MS. GATES: -- but we need to know 'cause we 


got confused with the form that said -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 


MS. GATES: -- sign it and then that waives all 


-- that you're not objecting to anything. 


Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Thank you. Any -- any 


others that wish -- yes, ma'am, please. 


MS. MARCOSKI: My name is Bev Marcoski and I'm 


here representing myself. My father worked for 


Blockson, Owen Chemical, during the 1952 to 


1962 period. I've read the SEC petition 


evaluation report and I have three comments on 


it. One is in regards to the phosphogypsum. 


This was a byproduct of separating out the 


uranium. I came up with an analogy. 


Phosphate, you have this rock, and my analogy 


was an egg you're separating. One you're using 


a mechanical separation, the other a chemical 


separation. The radon that comes from the 


phosphogypsum was not included from 1962 to 


1982 as it would relate to my father's death. 


He died in 1982 of lung cancer. And I, too, 


just got my percentage of causation as 39.06. 

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He was 58 years old. 


My concern is the phosphogypsum is still at the 


Owens site, and right now Waste Management is 


looking at a $23 million cost to take care of 


that. The other part of the concern is this 


was a byproduct of separating out the 


phosphate, even though it di-- it wasn't 


concerned with the uranium. I guess when I 


looked at Technical Basis Document 1, it said a 


minimal amount of the uranium went with the 


phosphogypsum. Then I read Technical Basis 


Document 2 and it said most of the radium went 


with that. Radon comes from radium. So this 


was there and it wasn't accounted for in these 


men's lives, this amount of radon that's being 


admitted (sic) by this phosphogypsum pile. I 


do think the government should have some 


responsibility for this waste product that is 


there and how much it's contaminating. 


I know the EPA has asked them to clean it up, 


some of the storm water drainage. I don't know 


how much else it is polluting in the area. So 


again I guess my concern with it is it wasn't 


registered from 1962 on when they -- when they 


said they would account for radon with the lung 

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cases. I think they could have taken that 


additional time period from whenever the people 


were employed. 


My second concern is page 31, organ dose, in 


the SEC -- SEC petition. 


(Pause) 


Page 28, I'm sorry. 


 DR. ZIEMER: This is page 28 of the -- 


MS. MARCOSKI: 28 of the SEC petition. They're 


using this information to give people the 


benefit of having medical X-rays. My father, 


again, had lung. But when you're doing a 


medical X-ray, you're radiating this area. 


What else is in this area is your thymus gland, 


which is on this chart, and also bones, which 


is also in this area. My concern is the immune 


system is -- let me think of the words I want 


to use for this -- the thymus gland and bone 


marrow both work in controlling the -- the 


autoimmune system creates T cells, and bone 


marrow creates D cells, so this is another part 


-- so if you're looking at lung, I believe you 


have to look at the effect that radiation is 


also having on the autoimmune system, which 


includes the thymus cells and the bone marrow 

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cells. You're also radiating them, possibly 


causing damage to the immune system. It isn't 


just an organ by organ exposure calculation. 


There are other factors that interplay into the 


body's chemistry with the autoimmune system. 


So I don't think you can select it out organ by 


organ, especially if you're looking at lung. 


You do have to consider bone marrow's function 


and the thymus cell -- gland's function of 


producing T cells that would also be affected. 


My third one in the SEC petition has to do with 


the health endangerment. Basically, common 


sense. If you were exposed say roughly to 40 


percent causation factor that your job caused 


your cancer, I would consider that health 


endangerment. I think maybe the bar that you 


set at 50 percent causation factor is maybe a 


little bit too high. If someone has a weakened 


immune system and you come in with a ten, 20 or 


30 percent factor, that can also cause -- have 


maybe a greater effect than causation 


percentage. 


Those are my three comments. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, and you actually raise some 


very provocative points, which in a sense are 

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not addressed very well by the law. For 


example, are there individuals who are more 


sensitive to radiation than others. We are --


we are mandated under this law in a sense to 


treat everyone the same, even though your 


point, biologically, is probably a good one and 


-- and of course the 50 percent bar is imposed 


on us by the law, not by -- this Board does not 


set that bar. That is a legal requirement, but 


we understand the point. 


I might add, interestingly enough, in some 


other countries -- namely in Great Britain -- 


they have a sliding scale where the -- the 


compensation is based on the percent. So if 


you have, for example, a 40 percent probability 


of causation, then your compensation is 40 


percent of some number. And if it's 60 


percent, it's 60 percent of that number and so 


on, a sliding scale. And it's -- it's simply a 


-- a different public policy than the U.S. has, 


but perhaps every bit as valid. But the points 


you raise are certainly -- from a biological 


point of view, are -- are quite valid points 


certainly. But thank you very much. 


MS. MARCOSKI: Thank you. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: I saw another woman in the rear -- 


yes, please. 


MS. MCCOLLUM: Hello, my name is Carla Martin 


McCollum, and I'm here to speak on behalf of my 


father, who was a 40-year employee of Blockson 


Chemical/Owen Chemicals. He worked there from 


1950 to 1990. He's not able to come himself in 


person because he's recently been released from 


the hospital, but he has had a couple of bouts 


of cancer in the past. He worked in the 


building in question, Building 55, from 1954 to 


1957. And what he would like -- he and my 


mother would like to relay to the panel, what 


is known. 


 The government did not protect the workers. 


There was no monitoring, no protective or 


safety measures were in place. No regular 


follow-up physical exams were done. The 


workers were allowed to come into direct 


contact with materials. There was no 


remediation at the site. Buildings were torn 


down with no cleanup process was done of record 


at the site to eliminate further exposures. 


 Models were created which were not based on 


that specific site. They did not take into 

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consideration the individual, but instead 


categorized the group. The people were taken 


advantage of because of the scientific 


expertise that the individuals lacked to refute 


the denials. They also had a lack of monetary 


support to hire those who could possibly help 


them to refute those claims. 


In other words, it looked good for the 


government to announce a possible compensation, 


but it appears that denial was their intent for 


most of the exposed workers. 


In summary I'd like to say four things. Number 


one, the workers are on record for working at 


the site. Number two, there were no proper 


safety procedures followed. Number three, the 


cancers/illnesses that were denied after review 


could have been caused by exposure to the 


material in question. Initially my father was 


told that he had a very good chance to qualify 


because of his illnesses. And last but not 


least, most importantly, they did not inform 


the workers about the substance that they were 


exposed to. Thank you very much. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Carla. Let's see, is 

it Bev? 
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 UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, I -- we just heard from you. 


I thought it was another one. Okay, here we 


go. And then -- see if I can read -- is it 


Jerry? 


 DR. WADE: Jerry Ozbolt. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jerry, okay. 

 MR. OZBOLT: Thank you. My name is Jay Ozbolt 

and I --

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, Jay --

 MR. OZBOLT: Jay, yeah. I'm representing my -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- thank you. 

 MR. OZBOLT: -- father, and a lot of the stuff 

that -- that I would have brought forth is what 


this lady just had given you, but my question 


is -- and I've asked this of many people, can't 


seem to get an answer -- fortunately, and -- 


apparently her father -- my dad's still living, 


but my dad has some other problems in breathing 


and -- and problems with his legs that they're 


not exactly sure that maybe, because of the 


exposure to this situation, that it hasn't 


caused the problems and what he has now. Now 


he was in that -- in Building 55 from late '59 

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until '62 when they shut that place down. 
I 


personally had gone into that plant when my dad 


was working there because I had worked for a 


contractor taking stuff out of -- out of a 


cinder pile that they have there and had seen 


this operation. And I think, just like this 


lady said, they were never identified and -- 


and told that what they were working with and 


for what reason, so I guess what my question 


would be is is there any way that they can -- 


you know, I don't understand what the -- when 


the law was written how they can identify and 


say okay, the individual has to be gone in 


order to get the compensation. I mean if these 


guys were not told what they were working with 


and what ramifications it would go later on, I 


mean I just don't understand how the -- the 


governmental situation, that they can tie this 


up and say he has to be deceased before 


anything can be done. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let me address that in part, but 


I'm not aware of any requirement that the 


claimant has to be deceased. There are many 


living claimants. And for this particular part 


of the program there is a requirement that the 

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individual have a -- one of a list of cancers, 


so there are -- some other health effects which 


one might associate with the workplace are not 


covered by this particular compensation act, 


but I'm not aware that -- of any requirement -- 


and Larry, can you confirm this? There's no 


requirement that the individual be deceased, is 


there? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That's correct, there's no 


requirement for a person to be deceased. If 


they present with a cancer diagnosis and 


they're still alive, they should file a claim. 


If they have beryllium disease, they should 


file a claim. If they have silicosis, they 


should file a claim. 


 MR. OZBOLT: (Off microphone) Unfortunately 


that was not what was explained to me the last 


time I was at a meeting (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Yeah. 


 MR. OZBOLT: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Yes, another comment, sir? 


 MR. GIRR*: Hello, my name's Cyril Girr. I'm 


Beverly's older brother. My father, Cyril 


Girr, passed away back in '82. And as she 


described, he died of cancer and it was one of 

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the cancers that has been identified but the 


causation percentage was 39.something, about 40 


percent. 


Some of the things that I don't understand, 


basically, are the assumptions. When you read 


over the literature, the causation percentages 


were calculated on assumptions. And the facts 


are there's a lot of people that died and are 


sick and dying. So if you base these 


calculations on assumptions, and the record-


keeping at Blockson's was minimal at that 


extent -- you know, their safety -- if you look 


at what's required now as far as OSHA 


regulations and safety compliance, they were 


basically non-existent at that time. So how 


could you make assumptions to calculate an 


exposure rate based on facts that really didn't 


exist, and you're doing that basically on 


assumptions. The assumption that should be put 


into the calculation is the fact these people 


are dead, or some of them are extremely sick 


and dying, and that would give you the exposure 


rate of 50 percent or greater right there. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. I don't know if that's a 


rhetorical question or not, but -- and one 

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would have to look at this particular case to 


know what, quote, assumptions were made. But 


there is an established methodology for coming 


up with a number for each of the cases, so -- 


and it may be that in this particular case that 


you may want to sit down with one of the NIOSH 


staff people and have them go through that with 


you. But we're required under the law to 


operate in a certain way. These assumptions -- 


there are clearly uncertainties, but they're 


not pulled out of the air. And in fact, if you 


look -- if you look very closely, what you 


learn is that the less we know about the dose 


for a person, the more likely they are to get 


compensated because of the way we make -- we 


make assumptions that are highly claimant-


favorable. You -- you will find probably -- 


and I'd have to verify it, but I -- if you look 


at people who -- where we have very good 


dosimetry, the denial rate is likely much 


higher the more we know about it because we 


cannot operate with these broad assumptions. 


But the assumptions that are made are made in 


what I think we -- we believe are a highly 


claimant-favorable -- and I -- I realize if 

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you're at the other end of this and a denial 


has occurred, it may not look that way. But 


indeed, that -- that's the basis for -- for the 


assumptions that --


 MR. GIRR: Well, I understand that -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. GIRR: -- and that was explained. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. GIRR: That was explained in the e-mails 


that my sister received, that it was based on 


these assumptions, but I still can't -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. GIRR: You know, if the facts of record-


keeping are not there, you don't know what kind 


of direct exposures was given. You know, it's 


-- it's -- you know, and it is based -- you're 


-- you're -- you're basing it on a high 


assumption --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. GIRR: -- but is that assumption high 


enough --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I understand your question ­

-


 MR. GIRR: -- based on what these -- yeah, I 


mean if people are dying -- 

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 DR. ZIEMER: And indeed that -- that is the 


question --


 MR. GIRR: -- and they didn't meet 50 percent, 


how could that --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. GIRR: -- you know, how could that 


assumption be a valid assumption? 


 DR. ZIEMER: And it's a good question and it's 


-- it's the question that the staff always 


struggles with, and this Board does, are we 


making the right assumptions, so -- but your -- 


your -- we understand your question. We 


struggle with it, too. 


 MR. GIRR: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other comments? If 


not, I -- oh, yes, Mr. Miller. 


 MR. MILLER: Very briefly, it's been a long 


time coming --


 DR. ZIEMER: Could you identify yourself for -- 


 MR. MILLER: I've got my (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the court reporter in case he 


doesn't recognize you. 


 MR. MILLER: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I -- 


very briefly, Blockson Chemical has been a long 


time coming. It was one of my favorite topics 

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for the longest time as to when radon dose 


would finally be counted as part of the dose 


reconstruction, and NIOSH developed OTIB number 


43, which to my knowledge has not yet been a 


matter that the Board has reviewed or that 


Sanford Cohen has added to their list of items 


to prepare for the Board. I just would like to 


put one question on the table about OTIB number 


43 and the question is -- it's based on some 


Florida rock phosphate facilities and -- and 


you -- you -- the question about how do you 


account for uncertainty. That is unknown as to 


who was exposed to what radon when, where you 


were located. But this model assumes a 50 


percent confidence interval. And normally when 


you have production workers and you don't know 


where they worked, but you knew they were 


production workers, you use the 95th 


percentile. Interestingly enough, this model 


labels the 50 percent confidence interval the 


best estimate, which is a bit peculiar because 


normally we don't associate a best estimate 


dose with a 50 percent confidence interval when 


you don't have any data for individuals at that 


facility, assuming it's permissible to use data 

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from another facility. And so I just would 


like to put on the table that there may be a 


matter for inquiry for the Board to look at to 


see whether that model is in fact as claimant 


favorable as we normally assume they are. 


Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. I -- I think that TIB 


may be on our list, we -- if it's not already 


on -- we have a -- we have a number of TIBs 


that are on -- on -- on the docket for review. 


If that's not on it, it will be. 


 DR. WADE: I put it on. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any other comments? 


Yes, sure. 


 MS. REAVIS: If your method of --


 DR. ZIEMER: Please identify yourself for our ­

-


 MS. REAVIS: Oh, Linda Reavis. My dad worked 


at Blockson and passed away in '95 with lung 


cancer. But if there's only eight cases out of 


the over 200 that worked at Blockson that have 


reached a settlement and everyone else so far 


has been denied, I don't know how that could be 


claimant favorable because it seems like it's 


just the opposite, so that was kind of one 

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point that you were just talking -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I'm not sure what is eight 


out of -- what -- Larry's not with us now, but 


 MS. REAVIS: So whatever formula they're using 


for Blockson I don't think is the correct 


formula, either. And if any man that worked in 


Building 55 all those years and then was 


denied, then like you're saying, you know, what 


is the point? Why is -- what's that formula 


doing? It certainly isn't working. For this 


company it isn't. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, your point is well made and 


we'll certainly be aware of that as we proceed. 


Thank you. 


 MS. REAVIS: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Thank you all for being 


with us today. Again, there is a public 


comment period tomorrow if -- if any of you 


wish to speak, either again or additional folks 


speak, we -- yes, and Senator Obama will be 


here to address the assembly at -- we believe 


at 11:15 tomorrow, speaking on behalf of his 


constituents here. And also the regular 


meeting will get underway at 8:30. So thank 

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you very much. We're recessed until tomorrow 


morning. 


 (Whereupon, the day's business was concluded at 


5:48 p.m.) 

______________________________ 

204 

1 

2 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of Dec. 11, 


2006; and it is a true and accurate transcript 


of the testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


18th day of February, 2007. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102